There was no cutscene showing him ever dying. So was he a living DK?
“Living,” was kind of a subjective term, I think. I know in Icecrown questing we learn he cut out his heart when fighting Illidan to defeat him.
Presumably he would have died after he lost his soul to Frostmourne. (As Tichondrius claims that his was the first soul it claimed.)
Is it subjective? You’re living, dead, or undead pretty definitively, it seems. The cutting out of his heart was the discarding of his “weaker” memories and emotions, which manifested as a black crystal. Even if it were his real heart, it seems as though he’s already undead by this point.
3 Likes
I think its possible for a body to live without a soul. I can’t say any examples come to mind other than Arthas when he first claimed Frostmourne though. When he picked it up he still looked pretty alive, though that might’ve also just been game mechanics in WC3 not allowing for model swapping mid-campaign.
I’d say in this case yes because Arthas was simply a bloody mess on the grand scale of things. After he took Frostmourne and lost his soul he certainly seemed every bit undead as other undead, except for the wrinkle of having never actually dying.
So he was alive but undead and he got worse when he became the Lich King where he was even less alive despite being alive until at most 25 people and a couple thousand ghosts gave him the hands.
So in this very specific case, I’d argue yes being alive is subjective here lol.
But how was he shown to be undead but alive, as opposed to just undead?
1 Like
In terms of game mechanics and the like he was classified as undead throughout the Undead campaign, but you know…he never actually died.
The Lich King was the same throughout WotLK as well, classified as undead for all the things that come with it, yet he was still amongst the living…ish.
In Arthas: Rise of the Lich King the moment of taking up Frostmourne is accompanied by a “Cold” that “shot through him, shivering up his arms, spreading over his body and into his heart.” This moment of cold actually causes pain, but only for a moment. To me, this seems pretty clearly the moment he “died” and became undead. Even baring that, could we not assume he died between campaigns at the very least, considering he comes back pale as a corpse and classified as an undead?
5 Likes
I believe his transformation into DK arthas was a slow process that took around 2 months to do (He was wandering aimlessly after killing Mal’ganis for that time, before returning to his forces and killing them). It is possible that Ner’zhul allowed Arthas to “keep his soul” until he killed Mal’ganis, that way his forces wouldn’t notice anything significantly different.
Yeah, I mean meat wagons were classified as “undead” for the penultimate mission in the scourge campaign so you couldn’t cheese it due to the whole “undead die slowly when in anti-undead field”. Even though meat wagons were mechanical. Also necromancers are still alive but they are classified as “undead” as well. It is always fun to use holy light on Kel’thuzad in the 4th mission of the human campaign even though that was when Kel’thuzad actually dies for the first time. So how can an ability that damages undead… damage someone who was actually alive. Game mechanics are annoying.
I think he is undead, but there was no violent death and reanimation process because he was made this way by the most powerful, purest kind of Necromantic magic. Similar to how the Death Knights and Sylvanas are a step above rank and file Forsaken in terms of the magic that began their undeath, Arthas stands above even them. I think his body most likely slowly transitioned into undeath without a break in consciousness from actually dying. The body gradually became more dependent on necrotic magics to sustain itself instead of its regular bodily functions which slowly turned off.
think it is related to frostmourne being maw stuff.etc