Arthas?
In other words, could we see another character that just wants to see Azeroth burn?
Ok, so this is NOT intended to be a mean or negative post, but I merely want to explore the possibilities introduced by Arthas in Wrath specifically but also more generally.
When I revisited Arthas’s character in like the mid 2010s or something, I had some thought which was like, well yeah he’s killed his father and done all sorts of horrible things… but does he have some kind of plan? Like what is his plan? Is it all for something or other? Could there possibly “be” some kind of real cognizable goal or motivation behind all his evil?
Azeroth is one messed up place, it runs according to a hierarchy of higher beings for the most part, whether they be gods and goddesses like Elune and Cenarius, ultra cosmic level entities like the Pantheon or the Void, countless powerful forces like the Light and the Void, and that’s not even counting the Shadowlands forces and First Ones and others…
…and I feel like on some level it’s cool worldbuilding, but it also seems to deprive the player character of a fundamental sense of mattering or choice.
In some ways, Sylvannas was this way, but Arthas certainly was this way, in that they simply had a massive energy to just rage against the machines.
And that’s the thing, I kinda think that basic idea, raging against the machine, is great storytelling fuel. I think it keeps players playing and interested. And I feel like, revisiting those ideas in some ways, in some calm, ordered but serious way, we could see more villainous characters like Arthas actually make out like heroes somehow. I’m not saying Arthas specifically and defending regicide or anything, but I don’t know, just something gothic and metal that actually comes out on the right side of history.
I feel like there’s historical precedent for this for example reading about Charlemagne, the king of the Franks. Much has been made about his Carolingian Renaissance and stuff like that, but apparently the Franks were mainly interested in Roman antiquity not necessarily to continue sort of the “civilization” but for it’s religious writings and perfecting grammar and parts about god.
Not only that, but their mission often in battle was brutal, it was seeking out often Arian goths or other Germanic peoples and ruthlessly christianizing them, which actually was in like with Roman ideas that Arianism was merely a way of looking like Christians but on some deep level continuing their pagan ways.
I mean, Charlemagne never murdered his father or anything, but he imposed his will in dramatic and violent fashion on a wide range of people, arguably divided Christendom and European harmony and other things, but it also bizzarely brought peace and stability, all kind of in a weird way in a zealous attachment to his own personal version of what god needed and wanted.
I feel like, Blizzard is sort of returning to it’s roots with Titans, but that’s like the Vikings, it’s one step removed from the Franks. And Elves with Midnight, well I’m sorry but even if Blizzard ever introduced High Elves they would never live up to expectations. High Elves and Tolkien’s ideas are simply not Blizzard’s MO, they expressly made that clear with Blood Elves but also really if you want cool Elves there’s tons of Korean MMOs like Lineage to get an Elven fix that make Elves super cute and are just fine.
But Arthas? He has no precedent really in my opinion in gaming storytelling, he leaned into every instinctively power hungry crazy impulse he ever had and kept going even when the entire world was against him.
In that sense, I’m wondering, can maybe the Menethil’s be like (not Holy Roman this time) but Roman emperors? Madness but possibly for the good or ill?
Now I’m imagining like a new direction for the story after the world souls saga, “The last Menethil” another descendant of Arthas or someone, who takes more after Arthas and not like Callia, who feels his father actually had some totally crazy vision for Azeroth that like got warped or something, or possibly just a victim of circumstance or something, and then he sets up to be the big villain, but in a twist from Wrath the players actually can somehow see his side and it becomes clear there is a true bigger threat than all the titans and old gods and everything else before, and only larger than life humans like Sylvannas and Arthas can stand up to them.
I don’t know, that’s just my idea, I don’t think anyone here will really like it, but the idea of analyzing why Wrath was the most successful expansion in WoW’s history and revisiting it in someway I think would be a better idea than High Elves, or really anything Elven focused in particular.
Not that Elves and Titans are bad, but I don’t know, go as big as you can I think, and in many ways from WC3 all the way to Wrath, the entirety of Warcraft revolved around Arthas, he’s got to still mean something somehow IMO.