I enjoy looking at alternative endings to stories, as a sort of creative mental exercise. What would Middle Earth have been is Sauron had won, that sort of thing. I love reading alternate history novels because it such an interesting viewpoint on characters and people.
So say Arthas had won - us group of the greatest of Azeroth’s heroes had been risen at his ultimate servants, what would have happened after that?
I have this image of Tirion being killed by us group of servants and becoming our leader, but beyond that its hard to tell. Under the new lore presumably the Jailer would be involved somehow but not sure how. So what do you think would have happened?
I think it would depend on why Lich King wanted us as his champions to begin with. I think it was likely he was preparing for another war after defeating us, presumably the Burning Legion. They already had attempted to invade Azeroth through the Sunwell in TBC, where the Scourge could be seen helping us, indirectly, against the demons.
A full blown invasion by the Legion was inevitable. And then you have other players, like Deathwing or Azshara / N’zoth, who posed a threat to him.
If anything, us becoming the Lich King’s champions would have just been the beginning of him consolidating his power.
If Arthas had won at Icecrown Citadel, he would have attempted to push out of Northrend after consolidating his power there, and expand his reach as much as possible to everywhere else on Azeroth. Whether to prepare for some later Legion invasion or just to accumulate power, Arthas made it very clear in Wrath that he had long-term aspirations of bringing all of Azeroth under his rule. Maybe his advance could have been stopped, but with so many forces already in Northrend during Wrath trying to keep him contained there, I think it would have been very difficult for any resistance to succeed against the Scourge at that point if they won at Icecrown. All those soldiers killed in Northrend would have been raised and added to Arthas’ ranks, including the bulk of the Argent Crusade’s forces.
Arthas was evidently considered a failure by Zovaal, so while he may have received some influence through the helm, I think Arthas for the most part was not following whatever Zovaal had planned for him.
Something to consider is that we don’t really know just what the Jailer expected Ner’zhul or Arthas to do that would have not made them failures.
Every soul taken by the Scourge increased its master’s power. So killing and Scourging everything on Azeroth may well have been his intended purpose for them, as doing so could have empowered the Helm and Frostmourne to such a degree that neither Lich King would have been able to continue resisting the compulsion through them to obey Zovaal and shatter the veil as Sylvanas eventually did.
I think he was a failure because he…failed. As in he let himself get killed by a bunch of us mortal ‘anima batteries’. Not necessarily because of anything else he did.
Exactly. Death for beings with souls was the Jailer’s aim, in order to empower him in his quest to defeat the other Covenants and rewrite the rules. In that respect, Arthas was doing fine up until the end.
I guess it depends on how long the Sire was working for Zovaal. The first invasions by the Burning Legion took place thousands of years before the First War.
I guess it depends on how much under the influence of Shadowlands powers Sargeras was at that point. I just dont know that much about the timeline, how much the demon forces were working against Sargeras and for the Sire and so on. Its all sort of iffy, lorewise.
If the intent was to gain control of Azeroth, and if Arthas appeared to be doing that, and if the Legion was indeed Sire-controlled, then they might well not have invaded, because they didnt need to.
According to Chronicle 3, we know Arthas wanted to convert Azeroth into Undeath, because he was tired of the petty infighting amongst the races. And I imagine after consolidating most of his power in Northrend, at that point there really wouldn’t be many people powerful to actually stop him or his new Death Knights. He’d probably succeed in his goal ultimately. Since he could only true die at the top of ICC, his seat of power.
There is no “set” destiny. It all depends on what an author wants to bring in. Eithe a new set of heroes continues with the struggle or Azeroth becomes a dark version of Maldraxus. it basically boils down to that.
We don’t need to wonder. We know one possible future:
In one possible future, he’d seen a successive Lich King rise from the Frozen Throne, even more terrible than Arthas or Ner’zhul, and sweep across the land with thousands of skeletal warriors in his wake. When the Legion returned, it was to a world already dead, and the demons laughed and played with the unnaturally risen draenei—all to spite Velen for the chase he’d led across the universe.
Yeah arthas’s goal was to “live forever” so had we stayed dead atop icecrown akd he raised us, we’d have been his generals quickly conquering the planet. Azshara would be a non issue. Undead don’t breathe and old god void magic is pretty useless on them. He did hate the Legion and once they showed up they’d have been met with azeroths own endless army. But at the same time he’s filling that helm with domination magic. Eventually he wouldn’t have been able to ignore zovaal at all.
She stands in her place by the side of the Throne as the two captives are dragged across the icy platform and left at the bottom of the steps. One is a child, no more than ten years or so who clutches at the tall figure as the man struggles to his feet. Bloodied, bruised, his clothing torn, his black hair a wild mane around his face, still he radiates a stubborn pride. There’s fear there, she senses - an emotion she is all too familiar with. Not so much fear for himself but for the child…his son…as he places a shaking hand on the boy’s head.
Her master is pleased and that warms a small part of her cold heart. Pleasing him is all that gives her any sense of satisfaction anymore. Since her own raising on that last terrible day his will and desires are all that matter to her. So she follows him slowly down the steps, one hand resting on the hilt of her runeblade, that hungers to have itself thrust into that warm mortal body. Either one would do, it had no moralistic sensibilities. At the slightest hint of danger to her King she would kill both of them. And the blade would feed and the terrible need inside herself would be momentarily satisfied.
Her lord’s voice is surprisingly warm when he finally speaks. Warmer than the cold air around them, a cold she does not feel on her own undead flesh.
“It’s been a long time, Varian. I am so very pleased to see you again.”
