The Razing of Stratholme: Was it justifiable or not?

A dated topic I know, but this was always one of the more interesting WC3 quests at least to me because for all intents and purposes it was Arthas’ Kobayashi Maru.

It presents him, and by extension us, with a stark morale conundrum: the city of Stratholme has been infected and most of its citizens are doomed even if they’re not yet aware of it.

To make matters worse, the Dreadlord Mal’ganis and his force are loose deep within the city and hastening the spread one house at a time.

In Arthas’ position, what would YOU do? What COULD you do?

In my personal and probably unpopular opinion, I don’t think there was much Arthas COULD have done differently.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that Arthas listened to Uther and Jaina and decided to have their total force bar the entrance and institute a quarantine while messengers were sent with all haste back to the Capitol for reinforcements and to inform King Terenas and by extension the Alliance of Lordaeron of the gravity of the situation.

To me though, I just don’t think it would be enough. Even if the mages of Dalaran found a way to detect the infected due to the plague’s magical nature, they wouldn’t be able to properly screen people because Mal’ganis would make sure they never got the chance.

Left to roam free in Stratholme with its people unmolested, in mere hours countless hundreds if not thousands of innocents would be quickly slaughtered by his forces and turned into mindless Scourge.

The ever decreasing number of clean refugees would be driven to hurl themselves in desperation at Arthas’ forces to escape the tightening noose of undeath at their backs. They would not wait to be properly inspected for infection, they couldn’t because the tide of Scourge at their backs wouldn’t give them the time. If they didn’t escape, and escape now, they would share a fate worse than death.

And so Arthas’ forces would be forced to cut them down in ever increasing numbers, destroying his army’s morale as well as slowly stretching them to the breaking point even as more reinforcements continue to arrive.

And when his army was thoroughly demoralized, exhausted, and spread out trying to stop every desperate refuge from sneaking out of every drain or side passage, then the real horror would emerge.

Swollen to thousands if not tens of thousands strong and likely bolstered with greater undead such as Abominations that they now had time to stitch together as well as the direct power and leadership of Mal’ganis himself, the Scourge would have fallen on the now vastly outnumbered and weakened army.

It would be as if a dam broke and released a veritable flood of undeath that crashed upon and began butchering them. No matter how many were killed, countless more would seem to take their place and it would be true as more continued to flood out of the massive city while the Alliance’s fallen would be raised and turned against their steadily dwindling living comrades.

Fighting for their lives, even Uther would understand that trying to simply contain the infection only created a greater catastrophe. Headstrong he might be, he would think bitterly, Arthas was right to have wanted to raze the city. Watching the endless numbers continue to pour out, he understand at last that the Scourge counted on their mercy to become unstoppable. In his desire to save the people of Stratholme, he had instead doomed them all and unleashed a far greater evil that would sweep across all of Lordaeron.

In all likelihood, Arthas and the others would be forced to flee to the Capitol and would soon be besieged.

In my mind, no matter what form of containment or quarantine Arthas and the others might have taken, it would only give Mal’ganis time to grow the Scourge presence there into an overwhelming tide that would eventually sweep them away. There wouldn’t be time to test for infected because Mal’ganis wouldn’t give them that time.

It was cruel, it was callous, it was genocide. But I sincerely believe Arthas felt he had no other choice and, despite the horror he would be unleashing against people who might not be infected, knew that if he didn’t then Mal’ganis certainly would and turn them all into enslaved monstrosities.

I just don’t think aside from a few scant cases that the citizens of Stratholme could have been saved no matter what choice he made in the time he had. It really was a no-win scenario for him, the only real choice he had was in choosing to left them die at the Scourge’s hands and be raised or finish them off himself in an act of mercy.

What do you think? Do you think a proper quarantine was actually possible and sustainable in this situation, or do you believe Arthas made the best possible choice he could have?

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I firmly believe Arthas made the best choice of the bad situation he had.

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It was entirely justified, Uther and Jaina would have seen that if they had stayed there even just 10 minutes longer when the population turned.

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I think Uther and Jaina’s problem with the choice Arthas made was two-fold. Him making the decision to purge Stratholme and then trying to force them to go along with that choice. Remember the whole “I order you as your future king” bit. That particularly didn’t sit well with Uther.

They became enslaved monstrosities regardless. He literally just made Mal’ganis and the Scourge’s job easier.

“You can’t kill them if I kill them first!!” - Arthas

“Okay then I’ll or someone else will just turn them into undead afterwards” - Mal’ganis

“LALALALALA CAN’T HEAR YOU, I’M KILLING THEM LALALALALALALA” - Arthas

In retrospect, the “mercy” was pointless because decades later Stratholme still burns with scores of undead still roaming the ruins.

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Awwww shi- here we go again.

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“All you had to do was purge the damn city Uther”

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Oh I fully agree there, he let his emotions get the best of him hardcore.

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“Glad I could make it, Arthas”

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Arthas starts a sentence with “hey look it stratholme-” and by the time he finishes the sentence he’s already decided on killing every single person inside.

Deliberating on whether or not it was right is kind of secondary, because Arthas’ problem is that he didn’t deliberate on literally anything.

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Kind of hard to when whole towns are being turned into undead and turning on the living. Not like they had all the time in the world to deliberate on every little decision

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Except they weren’t becoming undead yet.

Attacking existing undead was one thing but what made it a culling was that his army was slaughtering families in their beds to prevent them turning.

Which arguably didn’t even make any sense at the time. The Scourge is full of undead who weren’t killed by the plague. There was never really any evidence whatsoever that should have caused Arthas to think that someone already infected by the plague of undeath was somehow exempt from the Scourge’s reanimation and control if they died for some other reason before the infection finished them off. After all, in either case, they go from being alive to being a corpse riddled with the plague.

Arthas was forcing a plan that based on the information he had at the time, was as likely as not to expedite the creation of an undead army in Stratholme. All because he was frustrated and vengeful and wanted to get the problem over with so he could go after Mal’ganis.

I mean, the place had been full of undead since the Third War. Even now, all these years later, do we really have any evidence whatsoever to suggest that every living victim killed by the Culling didn’t just remain dead long enough to maintain the illusion of his plan working, and then got right up as a new undead minion to participate in the Scourging of Lordaeron as Arthas commenced his massacre at the capital?

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https://giphy.com/gifs/puppets-paths-fryea-SnYgnMQPBQF8s

:pancakes:

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Personally I think the best option would’ve been to speak with Jaina and Uther about their options before going straight to purging. If they’d been able to speak, then different points of view could be raised. At that point I would expect Arthas and Uther to still disagree, but Jaina could’ve teleported off to seek an answer from Terenas himself.

Keeping in mind she’s also incredibly good at using Mass Teleport, she could’ve brought in reinforcements. The biggest issue here would be the very real concern that other cities in the kingdom could also be infected, and having all their forces pooled at Stratholme would leave Lordaeron weak elsewhere.

No matter how it unfolds, Lordaeron was doomed, but at least Terenas could’ve been the one to make the final call leading to it, and as the King, that would be his duty.

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Arthas did the right thing, it was a hard choice that hurt I’m deeply but he saw in previous villages how quickly people turned into the undead once infected. And Malganis didn’t kill people when he broke into houses he merely hastened the plagues time table by instantly turning those infected into undead, they couldn’t wait for other solutions when people could start turning any moment and kill their families or friends.

It’s a dark choice, yet people act like Arthas made the choice recklessly or without much care for the people he was killing. Even though he had ample examples before stratholme on what would happen. “Oh no. . . The plague was never meant to kill my people, it was meant to turn them into the undead. DEFEND YOURSELVES!”

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It’s more rationalized in the Rise of the Lich King novel. After they arrive at Stratholme Arthas smells the sweet scene of the plagued infested grain, the same scent which caused the denizens of Andorhal to turn into undead and attack him and his men within minutes.

The infection was rather fast and so Arthas made the call to wipe them out before the entire city could be turned. It was even noted during the novel that during the start of it, the fighting switches from the living townsfolk to fighting undead townsfolk.

In the novel, Mal’ganis didn’t appear until after the culling was more or less over.

As mentioned before the infection was rather fast, to the point of turning people within minutes. So while Terenas could have been reached out too, the odds were rather low that he could declare a solution before the situation exploded.

Furthermore the novel did have a moment where Jaina talked about how they didn’t know who consumed the bread, the amount required to inject the townsfolk, and was clearly about to bring up quarantine of the city only for Arthas to snap that they didn’t have time.

When Arthas countered that the people would rather be killed than to be forced into undeath, he and Jaina both silently acknowledged as their own preferred choice for themselves. That fact really stayed with Arthas when he went off to Northrend and Jaina refused to come.

Uther kept silent throughout that minor debate up until he was given the order to enact the purge. And it is currently unknown if he had thought of other options for the situation.

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Well, assuming he was informed of it and the urgency and need to save time, I imagine Terenas would’ve either asked Jaina to take him back, or, given her his choice of who should take command of the situation; Arthas or Uther.

If Uther did he didn’t offer anything, yet “Arthas bad.” Cause he was the only one who came to a decision in a time when speed was required.

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“Why didn’t they engage in a concise and meaningful dialogue with the panicking prince delivering ultimatums with an army at his command?”

Arthas started the entire scenario with a demand, and at the very first “what?!” he basically started issuing threats hammering down Uther with “as your future king (a meaningless sentiment when the current king still lives) you’ll do this or else.” There was no window for approaching any alternative because Arthas made sure there couldn’t be.

He was the sort of person who jumps to a conclusion, then shuts down anyone who might raise any objection or alternative. Because forcibly eliminating all opposing ideas makes his decision “right” by virtue of being the only decision that’s allowed to be entertained.

Folks just ignore that because the decision to “kill 'em all just in case” is an edgy zombie movie trope that makes people feel like they’re deeply enlightened and pragmatic for agreeing with it.

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No one offered an alternative Uther only offered a “how can you consider that there’s got to be another way.” And as Gornur said in the Arthas novel it stopped being killing living civilians and turned into nothing but undead during Strath, but oh no let’s forget Arthas witnessed this beforehand, that he witnessed people turn into undead quickly even though they seemed fine at the time.

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Short of Jaina freezing an entire city (and strat was before she could do something like that) or some light based miracle like anduin seems to pull out of his hat every 5 seconds…there was no way to save the city. It was the logically correct choice, just not the morally correct one.

Would you rather take the morally correct choice and everyone dies?

or the logically correct (but morally wrong) and some people live? What is more important, lives or principles?

That depends on your point of view, neither of which is factually wrong.

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