Under the Burning Legion, they were obviously an enslaved tool used to pave the way for the invasion. But since they broke away from them, what is their motivation? Power just for power itself? To kill all the living and make them undead just because they’re pissed off that they are undead?
Say they were to succeed and take control of all of Azeroth? What then? They don’t have parties. They don’t raise families. They don’t “live.” What does the Lich King do for recreation? Play golf?
Because I have never really understood their motivation, I’ve always seen them as sort of a weak antagonist in the WoW universe. A Big Bad that is bad for no real reason that I can see.
Thoughts?
Muscle flexing, mustache twirling villain. The only reason they were even interesting in WC3 was it was a fun dynamic to have bad guys trying to be freed of slavery from even bigger bads which is uncommon storytelling. After that you can see a noticeable drop in anything interesting pertaining to them. WC3 had some really unique, muscly story dynamics, but it also had generic ones.
At least the big buff bad in burning legion has understandable motivation, even if it’s been retconned at least once
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Funny enough Shadowlands lore semi-retcons the purpose of the Scourge in a way that doesn’t really change much… but adds to the background some things about several characters we didn’t really know.
I won’t get into it unless asked, but if you wanna spoil it for yourself you can check out Nobbel’s videos on it, he’s got a few.
The Lich King wants to rule. All Scourge are his slaves.
To spread Rona to America
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To wipe out all life on Arrakis! I mean Azeroth.
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why cant it just be like cancer, pointless spreading of destruction with no aim. Why do things need to have a goal? Undead was a tool of the demons, the demons are gone but they forgot to turn off the tool before they left.
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In WC3 and Classic
The scourge where simply a puppet of the Legion that was strong enough to break free and become independent. It is presumed then, that being it’s own power, the Scourge simply needed the power to ensure it’s own survival and dominance. Killing the mortals of Azeroth would supply its armies with enough “meat” to potentially take on anyone.
In WotLK this is mildly retconned with Arthas also being keenly aware of the presence of the Old Gods, their armies, and the threat they pose, and they are kind of lumped in with the living, and the legion, as potential threats.
In the most recent xpansion, this is retconned outright, and basically the dreadlords have infiltrated many of the other aspects of power in the expanded wow cosmology including Chaos (burning Legion), Shadow/Void (Old gods), and even Light (the "redeemed dreadlord you encounter in Legion). In doing so, they conned the Legion into creating the scourge, which is itself a weapon of the realm of Death and specifically the big bad of Shadowlands “The Jailer” for… REASONS (hasn’t to my knowledge been explained yet, but is presumably something about sabotaging their biggest visible rivals in Chaos, Shadow, and Light… and helping the Jailor which is presumably the big guy for the aspect of death, but they likely serve under the direct command of Revendreth shadowlands zone leader Denathrius, who in turn serves the jailer)
Yeah the lore kinda goes off the rails a bit the further into wow you go XD
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Because bad guys are goal oriented people?
Realistically, I think it was somewhat chasing a zombie fad that became popular around that time.
If you recall back to WC2 the pinnacle of the 3RTS games the Death Knights were actually a horde thing and were a creation of dark warlock magic, also a horde only thing were warlocks.
When you compare WC2 to WC3 you will see just how much the story got retconned. It’s sorta crazy, and it really bugged me at the time because the story progression made no sense.
It’s almost like they wanted to do a few things in WC3, for whatever reasons.
- Zombies because zombies are popular.
- More races, and let’s make the new Night elves a feminine society.
- Retcon the horde from being conquers to being pawns of the legion.
- Manufacture a new big baddy the Legion
- Arthas because zombies need a king.
I really oversimplified that and blended WC2 into it to give it some continuity, even though the horde was cooler in WC1 and WC2 when they were purely Invaders and not pawns. Example in WC1 the horde were akin to Viking raiders, in WC2 they were still similar but had more magic from the warlocks, and were more organized, and the demons were considered slaves of the horde warlocks, or siege weapons. WC3 changed all that, and I really did not care for the retcon.
Truth is the lore has some cool stories but the lore is also very inconsistent and a mess if you liked the first two RTS games.
damn wc2 lore sounds way more testosterone
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WC1 and WC2 was awesome even if simple because it was similar or inspired by Viking raids and so just purely awesome.
Legit on the first horde raids into AZ it was like 7 orc warriors and they brought home plunder to show off.
I think Chris Metzen was trying to change the story to be more high fantasy and interconnected or something… not sure why he decided to change it, but he did.
I’m sure the WC1 and -WC2 stories are online some place, they are gonna be super short but it’s also a very different story from WC3 and World of Warcraft.
In WC1 and even WC2 you can like he humans and elves, (high elves thanks to WC3) because they are weaker individually and out numbered, but very cunning and smart in tactics.
im tired of all these “deep” interconnected fantasy stories especially leading to more existnetial stuff… dunno why no one makes more simple hardcore ones. something like just an evil wizard in a tower wanting to take over the land, whats wrong with that. Im so tired of these illuminati secret things doing things for other things… like just do the work urself, kind of pussy imo getting other things to do it for you.
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Someone needs to play Warcraft 3. The Scourge campaign and Arthas are probably the best piece of fiction within the Warcraft universe.
those are episodic and have no lasting power…
Lady Vashj is an example.
The Scourge is meant to weaken the mortal races for the future incursion of the Burning Legion, and, like a virus, they have no real motive beyond spreading. It is something Arthas notices during the Warcraft 3 campaign, his entire morality has been replaced by “spread undeath” and he doesn’t mind it one bit.
The most interesting part of this is that an alien morality is developed from that. Arthas starts thinking of his legacy, of the glory of the Scourge and he even makes friends from within the Scourge ranks. Once the Scourge breaks free from the Burning Legion the desire to exist and spread is maintained, and if you asked the scourge’s rank and file (the sentient ones) they actively enjoy their undeath as a shot at power and eternity and see little value in any kind of existence unattached to the Lich King.
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Yup, that’s why WC1 and WC2 were so awesome, and why I didn’t like WC3 as much regarding its story. It just made the horde feel weak and pathetic, and I really didn’t care for that kinda story telling.
Also didn’t care for the “big thing” if WC3 being the heros that you level up because it was too much power concentrated into a single place, and WC3 nerfed how big an army you could build, and that really bugged me because it went from a War game to a game of small skirmishes that you needed a hero to carry the troops.
I feel like the best way to look at their motivations was that they were designed and raised as a sort of “fire and forget” invasion vector by the legion, and are still acting on that programming. In short, should they win, they’ll probably just wander around aimlessly.