The purge of Stratholme
Hiring mercenaries to destroy the boats, preventing his men from returning
Gaslighting your men into thinking it was all the mercenaries fault and ordering them to execute the mercenaries HE hired
Murdering his entire platoon afterwards
Regicide
To be fair once you accept Sargarasâ offer of âpowerâ itâs kinda difficult to back out of it without immense suffering and agony. Probably death too. By the time they realized that the Legion were a bit less than pleasant it was too late.
Didnât help they were convinced by two of the most prominent leads in Eredar society.
The other demons are more or less mass produced weapons of war but the Eredar were conned into serving them which makes it a bit different, at least for me.
Arthas is a good deal different because his minions werenât even given the choice.
Arthasâ decision to purge the city is not dissimilar from Ji Firepawâs choice to âblow upâ the turtle. And I think that fits with the dueling concepts of moral absolutism versus relativism. Do the ends justify the means? Thatâs the question. And itâs not one we are supposed to all have the same answer to.
You could base a whole WoW expansion around the Scourge doing what they did to Lorderon across Azeroth.
I think itâd be fun fighting our way out of a lose-lose situationâŚmight even have to flee to Outland just to get some breathing space.
You havenât done the quest, but you are more or less accurate, at least to me.
Well you see, the Blizz staff have a Hard-On for Sylvanas, so they thought they could deflect her actions with us seeing what has become of Arthas, a former villain. With that being said, they also brought down Uther at the same time, because of this Hard-On, and forgot that amidst his darkness, Arthas kept a handful of keepsakes, even as the Lich King. Keepsakes which meant that though he was a monster, deep within, though our power was not strong enough to find it until the end, he was still a young prince foisted into battle, wondering when the world would be brighter.
BUT, NO! Make whisp of the actual well-written character, and have us side with the Woman who shunned her very own people and betrayed all of life because she wanted⌠Oh right, the âcop-outâ, it wasnât her.
More to point, in the case of the Manâari, think of George Lucas and a certain Red Twiâlek. Instead of perhaps a heritage questline for the draenei perhaps renewing a tiny section of Argus⌠We get the very draenei, who with Archimonde and KilâJaeden, unlike most demons willingly gave themselves to Sargeras for power.
Cuz a Red Draenei Chick looks sexy I guess. Sry, my Draenei fascination vanished about ten years ago.
EDIT: But, one must acknowledge, this is modern wow⌠Even with the supposed âReturn of Green Jesusâ weâve got Lightforged Draenei Warlocks! And if that isnât a living redundancy than I donât know what is! Lore matters not anymore. If there is anything that matters itâs IRL Representation (Which does not belong in a Fantasy Game based in another world), and Nostalgia. Oh, and Blizzâs hard on for Draenei and Sylvanas.
Step 1: Flag down olâ man Velen.
Step 2: Appology and a thoughtful gift.
Step 3: Head to The Blue Recluse for a drink, cause youâre done.
If only Arthas had cracked this code.
These are pretty far from each other though
Not because of the whole scale thing but more so that Arthas saw the city as a problem so he choose to eradicate everyone, because it wasnât possible to determine who was infected and who wasnât so⌠better to burn it all down in his mind
Ji on the other hand saw a solution to an urgent problem - those two are very different mindsets required to take decisions such as these; one can say that Ji was reckless but that one could heal Shen-zin Su
The point was less âDamn the consequencesâ but rather âThis is more important an urgent so there can be a better option, but one that comes too late therefore I will act now and then solve the issues I have caused when we have more timeâ
These are VERY different mindsets because Ji and Aysa are of two different mentalities in terms of wise inaction versus necessary action - Arthas had absolutely nothing else other than âThese people are a problem so I will eradicate themâ; thereâs no coming back from killing those who you try to save, unless he wouldâve then gone on a quest to try to ressurect an entire cityâs worth of a population
Awesome, figured it would be something akin to how warlocks are usually treated lore-wise anyway
That is not even remotely comparable! Ji didnât blow up the turtle for one thing. He blew up the air ship, so that they could then heal Shen-zin Su. He wasnât setting out to kill him.
I didnât do any time portals, but I am surprised this scenario wasnât one of them.
What if Arthas hadnât purged the city?
Edit: I looked, there is a scenario where the scourge overrun Azeroth.
Thereâs no cure.
And it was also too late.
Like, run the dungeon. The entire place is Scourge almost immediately, pretty much instantly justifying Arthasâ choice.
Just going to repeat one more time.
What made Stratholme bad wasnât that he purged the city.
It was that he knew purging the city was his wrong choice. But pushed himself to do it anyway.
Arthas felt bad lol and him feeling bad was what lead him to corruption. Uther patting him on the shoulder telling him âYou did good murdering your people(this is how Arthas likely would have heard it)â likely wouldnât have helped him.
ââCop-outâ it wasnât herâ?
You do realize the entire point of the storyline was for her to accept that she is the one she made herself to be, right?
âOh it wasnât herâ wasnât the point of the storyline, the point of the storyline was that it was her
Read the book âWar Crimesâ and consider this:
Every single time ever since becoming free from Arthas control she has sought out a place in the world for herself and people like her - sheâs been betrayed, abandoned, betrayed again, had family say that they want to be with her but then opt not to, betray, abandon, and more again and again
Sheâs had ample opportunities handed to her countless number of times where she couldâve killed folks to then ressurrect them into being like herself, which is what folks say she was doing with the Forsaken essentially
The first time we see Sylvanas seize to care about these bonds are after sheâs been abandoned and betrayed for decades and thatâs when members of the Desolate Council flee with their relatives in the Arathi Highlands
And this was at the point when Sylvanas had made contact, somehow someway, with Zovaal and when Zovaal chose to betray her she attacked him leading to the part of her shattered soul being returned to her and that part of her having to accept that she is Sylvanas Windrunner in all of what she is - betrayed and betrayer
Up until this point she acted like âOh everyone else is just wrong and woe meâ which, again considering sheâs been dealing with non-stop forms of betrayal and failure for decades, not hard to understand why!
If one is dealt an incredible unfair and painful hand of cards and you face failure and betrayal from others for as long as you have lived in pain and suffering for decades, why wouldnât one turn to think of others like that? When Sylvanas saw family and those who stuck with her she let go of her guard again and again, to the point where she was left with Nalthanos (and lorewise the Forsaken Loyalists as well)
Was it well written? Eh, probably not - but for the storyline that they ended up going with I will continue to say that they did the best thing they couldâve done with the storyline they opted for
But hey, at least you edited your comment to include your very apparent bias so thatâs something at least
Well, since Shadowlands was a fever dream that never happened, Arthas was acting on his own violation with minor influence prior to picking up Frostmorne (according to the chronicles). So every act up to that point, Culling of Strat, hiring mercenaries to ruin ships and then kill them, stranding his men; that was Arthas.
Lets not forget, the culmination of these actions led to the rise of the scourge, killing 90% of BE population, and other genocidal tendencies. His also created Sylvanas the Banshee who then in turn goes into her own genocidal tendency with the whole burn the world tree moment.
Pretty much all of current WoW lore can be attributed to the decision that Arthas made going to Northrend to follow Malâganis. Arthas is the real Jailor of Azeroth, his actions are what hold the most influence imo.
Also Shadowlands never happened, I will die on that hill.
I think the main difference is the scope.
Arthas was the âleaderâ of the Scourge. We killed him and the Forsaken were an off-shoot of his army of people who broke free.
SARGERAS was the leader of the Legion. We sent him to space jail to play Uno with a blind guy and the Manari were a fraction of his army who, surprise, broke free.
Canât really compare Red Gusher #7123084213 who we probably would have killed if a quest told us to a leader of an army. The red Draenei were nobody underlings, effectively the Stormtroopers that swapped sides after their âAre We The Baddies?â moment or after the basic principle of, âHey, your side lost you can join us or dieâ kind of thing.
Hmm, okay, maybe it isnât a cop-out, but Iâd rather she had died a villain, than blizzard spend well over an hour trying to rationalize (or explain) the actions of one who committed genocide. But, Iâm in the same boat as some believing everything from BFA-SL never happened. I mean it felt a waste of years of villainizing!
And indeed, that makes my thought on Arthas being more deserving of redemption a bit redundant, Iâll give you that but did we need to even SEE Arthas, in any capacity? Did we need to see Uther, Draka, KelâThuzad, KaelâThas to understand the Shadowlands was a land of the dead?
But, that aside, thatâs ignoring the point and comparison, though now that I think of it isnât really apt at all. Arthas went a bit crazy, the Manaâri fell into Sargerasâ side of their own volition. Sylvanasâ Distrust is not even apt in comparison.
At the time he decided to cull Stratholme he didnât know if there was or wasnât a cure.
We find out later that there wasnât a cure. Was he MORALLY right, No. He turned his back on his order (Silver Hand) and turned away from The Light. And that was the beginning of his fall from grace and his decent into becoming the Lich King.
Her talking crap about him like she didnât do the exact same was just * chefâs kiss * the cherry on top.
Heresy!
