What was the point of the Lich King?

Lore Story Forum
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Or more specifically, what was the point of making him all part of the Jailer’s plan?

He was supposed to be the Jailer’s agent on Azeroth - okay. For what? What was he supposed to be doing? Because so far in Shadowlands not one thing in the Jailer’s genius all-according-to-plan machinations has involved going to Azeroth or even the living world at all. He got all of the Sigils in the Shadowlands, and Zereth Mortis is also located in the Shadowlands. What was the Lich King supposed to do? None of the Sigils were on Azeroth, and if you’re making an undead army then those souls aren’t going to the Maw to fuel him either.

If they wanted to tie the Helm and Frostmourne into the Shadowlands (not a bad idea in and of itself) it would have worked better if Kil’jaeden had legitimately stolen them from there instead of saying “All part of the Jailer’s schemes!” but then it doesn’t fit into what he’s doing at all.

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The Lich King was to get a Paladin for the Archon’s Sigil as Devos joining wasn’t part of the Plan.

There’s a reason Arthas wanted to convert either Tirion or Bolvar to Undeath.

Once Arthas died and Bolvar became the Lich King the Jailer switched to getting the Denizens of Azeroth to kill Argus to shut down the Arbiter and empower Sylvanas so that she could beat Bolvar, shatter the Helm of Domination and get the perfect Champion for his Bastion infiltration attempt.

The only hiccups to the plan were N’Zoth’s schemes to kill Azeroth before Zovaal could sacrifice her with his Heart of Azeroth and Sargeras’s plan with Xylem!

Khadgar being uncorruptable made it easier to confirm that neither N’Zoth nor Sargeras would be able to corrupt Dalaran’s leader into letting the Legion or Void win. Both took the hint and focused their efforts on other more useless targets or simple brute force.

The Void dropped all subtlety by making it obvious that Xavius was involved as did the Legion who after having their assassins in the Throne Rooms uncovered went all out in invading the Broken Shore.

Denathrius and Zovaal of course continued their subtle manipulations by replacing Matthias Shaw and Archmage Vargoth with Nathrezim.

The Legion having the Nathrezim in their ranks naturally noticed Vargoth’s actions and realized that they could continue with subtlety using other Archmagi and had Archmage Xylem whom they before hand corrupted before Cataclysm steal the Focusing Iris for their plans(namely to transfer all of Azeroth’s power to the Legion’s Void Revenant) only to fail.

The Void didn’t have time to react as the Nightmare was actively being invaded by the time news of the Nathrezim’s infiltration of the Kirin Tor was discovered!

https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Closing_the_Eye confirms that the Legion was behind the Void Revenant possessing Xylem and that they wanted the Void Revenant to claim all of Azeroth’s Arcane Magic killing her!

The Nathrezim’s infiltrations were for the sake of infiltration while the Legion’s infiltrations were for the sake of getting a Void Titan since Sargeras no longer could possess Illidan to open the way with the Sargerite Keystone! The fact that Sargeras decided to create a Void Titan loyal to himself using a Void Revenant loyal to himself as the base shows cunning!

If Sargeras had succeeded with Xylem he would have done what the Void Lords dreamed of doing but on his own terms! The Void Lords would have screamed in terror as Sargeras’s Void Titan brought the Void and everything else completely under his control!

Sargeras noticing Vargoth and putting his agent Xylem into play almost derailed Zovaal’s scheme with Azeroth!

The Void only started moving after Azshara’s power play in Stormsong Valley was foiled and the Void was solely banking on us defeating Azshara, releasing N’Zoth and corrupting us(first using a fake Wrathion with the backup being N’Zoth straight up corrupting us with his Void Magic) while sending it’s Sun Prophet to infiltrate the Amathet(who noticed while preparing a plan to kill everyone except Azeroth with Reply Code Omega).

The Void after just scrapping the idea of subtlety due to seeing them fail with Khadgar couldn’t create new plans for subtlety once they realized it still had a place. Sargeras due to being a being of Order on the other hand was more than capable of quickly coming up with subtle schemes!

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A major factor of the plan was the Jailer needed Azeroth’s titan. Zereth Mortis alone was not enough to achieve the goal he has in mind. He needed to use our titan as a power source to juice up the Origination machine so it could work on a universal level.

So for that he needed access to Azeroth. Sylvanas created that hole in the sky which did the trick just fine. But presumably the Lich King could have done something similar. And even if not if the Lich King did conquer the world it removes all opposition from our end standing between him and the titan. The Jailer was actually pretty thorough about trying to remove potential problems to the plan.

An Azeroth wrapped in Death goes a long way and clears out a whole side of the map.

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It’s not been explicitly stated, but I have to wonder if the idea was that if a Lich King had successfully Scourged all of Azeroth, the resulting influx of souls would make the Helm of Domination’s influence so powerful that it would overwhelm and dominate the wearer, subjecting them and the Scourge through them directly to the Jailer’s control. Which would theoretically grant him an enormously powerful servant with absolute control over every formerly living denizen of Azeroth, with nothing left alive there to resist.

After all, it was established with Ner’zhul that every soul added to the Scourge increased his power. “His” power being that of the Helm of Domination, since Ner’zhul’s physical body by that point was the Helm itself. So the accumulation of enslaved souls magnifying the Helm’s power could have been something that continued even once Arthas, then later Bolvar donned it. In which case an entire world’s worth of souls added to the Scourge could have made it increasingly difficult, then eventually impossible for the Helm’s wearer to refuse commands coming through it from Zovaal.

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A minor issue also occurs with where the ‘Lich King as Jailer Puppet’ puts the Dreadlords sent to act as the Lich King’s Jailers, since they didn’t really do anything to help that situation.

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The Lich King was supposed to be the Legions attempt to either soften or wipe out the people of Azeroth using the Scourge to make their invasion and conquest of Azeroth more efficient. And the plan nearly worked, if not for the last ditch efforts of the Alliance-Remnant in Jaina and her forces, the New Horde led by Thrall and the Night Elves organized by Malfurion and Tyrande.

Originally Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination were of Nathrezim (Dreadlord) make. The Dreadlords were the manipulators of the Legion. We see this all throughout the Warcraft timeline. They sneak in and sow deceit. They take the place of important figures and lay multifaceted traps. Items such as the Helm and Frostmourne would be tools in their arsenal, albeit seeing use later in the plans (see Arthas, whom they manipulated to the point of becoming the Lich King).

And now here is the problem with tying the entirety of the WoW Universe to the schemes of the Jailer. It just doesn’t work. It doesn’t make sense. There are others on this forum, Youtube Videos, Discords and Reddits that look at this Eons long plan of the Jailer and they all basically come down to one thing. Luck. And granted, while every plan needs a little luck, his plan was comprised almost entirely of it.

And that leads back to your original question. What was the Lich King supposed to do? This is no longer clear or defined. With the Legion, he was to bring the forces of Azeroth capable of confronting the Legion to their knees. Weaken them and make them easy prey.

For the Jailer, he’s just… sorta there. One of a million different darts thrown at a board to see where it would land. The mere existence of the Lich King is in direct conflict of the Jailer, because if he succeeds, the Legion succeeds, then the Jailer potentially looses.

Tying the Jailer to the Legion at all has turned the lore entirely on it’s head. There would have been nothing wrong with the Jailer, as this bound and vengeful force of death, using death of a Titan to his advantage and break free, and begin taking his revenge. It would have also made sense to have him in direct conflict with the Legion, as they actively devour souls in their conquest. They had also (as of Legion, the expac) supposedly purged most of the universe (which I don’t believe is still true). It would have made sense for the Jailer to turn his attention to the world that not only defeated the Legion, but may be one of the last remaining sources of Anima left.

Making the Jailer the master behind all the plans just leaves everything unsatisfying and, quite honestly, ruins a lot of the established lore, the Lich King being near the top.

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The Legion succeeding would only happen if the Lich King did not backstab the Legion in favor of Zovaal himself! The Lich King got Illidan to kill Tichondrius so the Lich King did backstab the Legion without drawing it’s attention towards the Nathrezim while also drawing it’s Master’s attention towards Kil’jaeden who was willing to use an Orc Shaman who hated him!

The Scourge being a weapon for the Shadowlands did not cross the Legion’s mind when they made Ner’zhul into the Lich King.

Ner’zhul relished the idea of backstabbing Kil’jaeden for this mysterious Zovaal. Ner’zhul may have had abandoned the majority of the Orc Race in favor of having his personal band grow into a new Horde from scratch but he wasn’t someone who sought to rule alone like Lich King Arthas was(the fact that he was willing to share with Arthas is proof of that)! He was just a Shaman abused by the Legion and willing to get revenge on them!

Arthas once he backstabbed Ner’zhul in order to rule alone still kept the plan of using a Paladin to get Bastion’s Sigil so that was not that much of a hiccup to Zovaal as he still planned on getting to the Sepulcher so all Zovaal had to do was get Denathrius to hand over his Anima(which he stole from all the Realms of Death) and Zovaal would claim the Sigils from Arthas himself as Arthas would be no match for the sheer amount of power that Zovaal got from Denathrius’s cache of Stolen Anima.

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But it’s all “if this” and “maybe that” and that’s where the issue lies. The Legion actively consumes souls to fuel their war-machine in every aspect, and the Scourge killed and/or corrupted all in their path. Paladins, Priests, whomever are not shown to have connection to the light when they are raised into undeath the way the Scourge did it. The Light actively harmed them, same with the Legion.

I’m also not sure what relevance a Paladin has to do with Bastion. Being in tune with the light does not mean one is necessarily cut out or worthy of Bastion. Paladins were created with the intention of being capable fighters and thus killing their enemies. They could have easily gone to Revendreth (see really any of the Scarlet Paladins) and we see at least one in Maldraxxus.

And if you’re obscurely referencing the use of Anduin, the Jailer basically used the fact that he is so wholly pure of heart to hide his intent of stealing the Sigil. Anduin isn’t a Paladin.

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In the original lore, the version that was simple and easy to comprehend and people liked, the Scourge were the thematic equals to the demon-blood fueled First Horde. A tool used by the Legion to soften the world’s defenses to further their goals and enable its eventual destruction and/or invasion. Just as the Legion corrupted Orcs into becoming the Horde, they used the corrupted flesh of dead Humans, Elves and Dwarves into becoming the Scourge.

The two were even linked further by Ner’zhul, who was the Orc counterpart to Arthas. Being lead by Demons to a path of damnation.

Simple. Easy to understand. Thematically pleasing. The new lore is a convoluted mess and ruins the old.

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Zovaal is like Kaguya from Naruto.

Just a random character appearance to trump every accomplishment from every villain in order to create the the perception that this was planned all along.

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And yet Arthas in his arrogance sought out the Paladins Bolvar and Tirion because he thought that no one but a former Paladin like himself was worthy of Bastion!

Lich King Arthas constantly used his past self as an example of how pure one can get(quite the opposite of Arthas with a Soul who questioned his Purity again and again) yet still fall. With that in mind it is natural he went for Paladins like Tirion and Bolvar!

Technically only Tirion fitted the role not that Arthas realized it in his arrogance(which he received when he revived his Horse which vindicated getting him killed in his youth when he had a Soul)!

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We know this to be false as one of the reasons why Zovaal considered Ner’zhul a failure is because he was usurped by Arthas, who was a Paladin prior to picking up Frostmourne. Hell, Arthas getting Frostmourne was Ner’zhuls idea in the first place. As it would allow him to undermine the Legion by using a walking “host”.

And Blizzard has stated several times that Ner’zhul, Arthas and Bolvar were all acting independent of Zovaal.

Which makes the retcon even more stupid as it is shown in Shadowlands that Zovaal can see through the Helm of domination. So clearly Zovaal would’ve known that his scheme with the Lich King was a failure from the get go. Yet he never told Daddy D or his dreadlords to pull the plug?

Exactly, Alexandros was a Paladin and he ended up in Maldraxxus.

In fact Alexandros was one of the original human paladins. Along with others like Uther and Tirion.

That wasn’t the reason. He wanted to prove that anyone can be corrupted and turned. Like he was. Which is why he went after someone as pure like Tirion. Who managed to use the Light even after he was “stripped” of it. It is basically The Killing Joke WoW edition.

Yven, sometimes you have a habit of framing your headcanon as canonical lore.

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The fact that Tichondrius himself mused that Arthas worked too well shows that Ner’zhul wasn’t using Arthas to get the Sigil. Tichondrius wasn’t worried about the Legion invasion failing despite having worries about Arthas indicating that he was worried that something else would be jeopardized.

Regardless there were surely other Pure Hearted Souls that would get the Sigil for entering the Sepulcher and Ner’zhul knew that even though he wanted a Body to walk around in.

You are referring to https://www.wowhead.com/news/lore-reveals-from-the-bellular-chains-of-domination-interview-nerzhuls-story-321100 I’m assuming?

I think that you could look at the patterns of what’s going on with Ner’zhul, with Arthas, with Sylvanas…the Jailer is refining his techniques. He needed agents on the outside to carry out his will. He had willing ones like Sire Denathrius and he has others that he’s tried to coerce or encourage along the way. The results he’s gotten haven’t always been what he wanted. You could imagine that if the Lich King was an entity designed to get his influence on Azeroth, that these mortal influences, both Ner’zhul and Arthas, ended up getting in the way. Now, when you saw Sylvanas trying to say to the Jailer “let me win this one, let me convince him, he’ll be better as a weapon this way”…the Jailer gave her some latitude there but it reached a point where he said it’s time to go. So that’s how we see dominated Anduin now.

Ner’zhul’s desire to get a Mortal Body got in the way of Zovaal’s plan and got him usurped.

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Seriously, what are you smoking.

Yven, you really need to stop framing your headcanon as canonical lore.

Stop trying to fill in for blizzards plot holes. They wrote this mess. It is up to them to fix it up. And making up character motivations from nothing is not the way to do it.

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The dread lords made it and the dread lords work for denathrius who works for the jailer it’s not a retcon it’s deepening of the lore

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I think Nathanos’ nephew, who became a member of the Scarlet Crusade is probably in Bastion. The amount of trauma in that boy, who became a man almost selflessly and dutifully to hunt down his childhood hero and end the monster he had become— only to be captured by Sylvanas and used as a conduit of youth and virility to give that same monster a new body for the Banshee’s pleasure.

Yeah dude… he’s mindwiped.

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I really don’t understand how the Kyrian ‘read’ that Anduin was this pure of heart king from Azeroth, but skipped over the part where he was captured by Sylvanas and made a mind slave to Zovaal, then just let him march inside their sacred chamber because… he’s mortal? Did they not sense his evil intentions? Did they even bother to ask what he wanted? The Maw Walker had to go through the entire tour first.

So was Zovaal’s eons in the making plan counting on the fact that the Kyrian were just complete idiots? Blizzard writing isn’t great, but the story of the Shadowlands really requires characters to be so dumb for the plot to work.

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Well this is what you get when you have people who thought GoT season 8 was the work of shakespear writing for WoW.

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Matt Burns was displeased with Danuser’s comment… How did Danuser get put in charge ahead of Matt Burns anyways?

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I know y’all don’t like Zoval (frankly I don’t either) but I do think he was a planned character ever since Edge of Night was written. Which goes back to near cataclysm era.

Better story IMO: Sylvanas helps us take down arthas and dies in the process in wrath of the Lich King. WC3 plots wrapped up.