Fiction didn’t exist until the mid-90’s
We didn’t know any of the specifics of Anakin’s fall to Darth Vader until the prequel movies came out. Nothing. The fact that it ended up being similar to Arthas’s is just a coincidence. For all anybody knew after seeing Obi Wan’s explanation in Return of the Jedi, Anakin could’ve just been power hungry or something. The whole tortured soul trying to do the right thing and getting walked into turning evil didn’t come until later.
Nobody has given me proof that it existed before that point.
We knew he was a Jedi that succumbed to The Dark Side and ended up being Darth Vader ← which is exactly who Death Knight Arthas was cough borrowed cough from. Neither Star Wars nor Warcraft 3 dealt with complex themes or convoluted stories, so it’s not like this is some vast logical leap lol.
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But the original Star Wars trilogy came out before the 90s!
fallen heroes are like some of humanity’s earliest literary figures
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That is the most generic description of somebody going evil ever. To think Arthas was specifically inspired by Darth Vader just going off of that is laughable. You’re delusional. Just admit that you didn’t know the prequels came out after Warcraft 3 and move on.
Star Wars is literally just a generic fairy tale in scifi trappings. It has dark lords and magic and swords and princesses. It is the very essence of generic.
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Not an argument, but ok.
Man I am actually stunned this conversation has somehow gone over your head.
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Since we’re going weird; only Revenge of the Sith came out after WC3. Phantom Menace was '99, and Attack of the Clones came out two months before WC3 released.
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Ahh, my bad. Clearly blizzard wrote the entire campaign in two months. lol. (yes, I know you’re joking)
It actually isn’t. You’re just dumb as hell. You say that both of them are generic stories, which is fair enough, but then you argue that Arthas is basically ripped off from Darth Vader’s story, despite the only story Darth Vader having at the point when Warcraft Three was released was as an already evil entity who had a purposefully vague backstory as someone who was once good, but turned evil. So, which is it? Are both generic or is Arthas copied from Darth Vader. It cannot be both.
I mean…
Shadowlands certainly feels that way, so maybe they did!!
Thank you! Too often people take my openly not-serious posts as very serious.
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It can, because they are both generic. The Original Trilogy and WC3 are both generic, but good, enjoyable stories. All that is required for Darth Vader to inspire Arthas is being someone who was good that was corrupted into evil. And it was written by a guy who… wait for it… liked Star Wars, Comics, and D&D.
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There is an equal chance that Chris Metzen was inspired by any other character fallen to evil. You have nothing to base your opinion that Arthas is inspired by Darth Vader. You’re just talking out of your backside.
Even in WotLK we had a questline where we confronted the fact there “was still good in him.” The point of divergence on a superficial level is that Arthas was not a redemption story.
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Again, not related at all to my argument at hand. We’re talking about Arthas in Warcraft 3. Not Arthas in Wrath of the Lich King.
It doesn’t have to be deliberate to be a retread, so your argument doesn’t really matter. Even if Metzen unwittingly told Darth Vader’s story again through Arthas, it doesn’t change the parallels.
(I will remind here I included inversion of the Chosen One trope alongside Darth Vader)
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I’m’a go be a mediator here.
The whole “Arthas is inspired by Darth Vader” thing has been around since… Basically WoW became a thing? It’s not unique to Kagehiro.
But personally, given Metzen, I assumed Arthas had a few different inspirations. Lord Soth for the look and the whole “death knight” theme is a definite suspect. There’s also some degree of parallels in backstory, but nothing really close to one-for-one. There’s another Dragonlance or Forgotten Realms character escaping my mind that had a similar background; the whole slow descent towards evil, starting off with acts best described as “ends justify the means”. It’s like right there on the edge of memory, and I just can’t draw it forth.
Darth Vader would also be an obvious inspiration; it’s pop culture that would have been relevant to everyone in the room when explaining the story to the devs.
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Pfft. Ok dude. So we’ve gone from “arthas was just Anakin skywalker’s story” to “Arthas was borrowed from Darth Vader” to “Metzen accidentally had a character similar to Darth Vader.” Just admit you’re wrong and walk away.
Not familiar with those characters but Metzen was on record as a giant Dragonlance fan so it makes alot of sense. That’s why Knaak wrote a bunch of novels in warcraft to begin with. As for Arthas inspired by Darth Vader. I could see some visual similarities to his helmed look but even those are loose.