Trying to wrap my head around the current lore with the Lich King.
So initially he was meant to herald the Jailor’s coming and dominion, but decided to do his own thing. Or was it the Burning Legion’s coming?
Anyway when he did break away, was he spreading the Scourge to fight one of these entities to prevent their rule?
Both
The Lich King was designed to be the herald of the Jailer (in secret), but also the tool to wipe out some of the most dangerous threats to the Legion. However Ner’zhul and Arthas had different plans. Ner’zhul had set up the Legion to fail without them knowing. Meanwhile Arthas just did whatever he wanted. Both of them (and Bolvar afterwards) resisted the Jailer’s influence. Which is why Zovaal took a more direct approach via Sylvanas in BFA and the start of Shadowlands.
So Arthas was more into undead conquest than anything to do with the Legion or Jailer?
Afaik, Arthas was struggling not to go full servant mode, that’s why kept Jaina’s locket.
So he was kinda in limbo, procrastinating.
This is amazing option for story in Shadowlands, but I hope they don’t touch Arthas considering how bad writing is.
From what I understand, it is very much to do with the dreadlords. They set the plan in motion for the legion to use the lich king and the scourge to weaken the forces of azeroth before they showed up. But from what I’ve heard, (sorry if this is spoilers) some new lore is that they have ultimately been serving Denathrius’ and the Jailer’s ambitions. The legion was presumably seen as a non-issue for them.
If I’m putting this together correctly, the Nathraziem, who are actually Venthyr, infiltrated the Legion and designed an elaborate plot for a mortal soul to find Frostmourne.
It was a long con to get someone, who happened to be Arthas, to use the Mourneblade to gather souls to feed the Jailor for his big campaign to get back what was his or whatever.
Nerzhul, via WoWpedia, was apparently tricked into service with Kiljaden and tried to escape, and then had his soul shattered by Dreadlords (Venthyr) and made into Frostmourne and the LK armor. Going by the current lore, these Dreadlords used Nerzhul as a way make the cursed blade and armor that would control a mortal soul to gather more souls.
So Nerzhul was an accessory to make a tool (Arthas) to gather souls, and the Dreadlords (Venthyr who served Denathrius , who served the Jailor) set all of this up.
And then Of course what the others said, people weren’t playing nice with the Jailor so the Jailor used leverage with Sylvanas to get more useful results.