It’s ultimately Zovaal’s fault.
Not quite. Zovaal is not happy with Nerzhul and Arthas amd Bolvar. They went counter to his plans.
Arthas was doing his own thing.
None of them would’ve been undead if it weren’t for him.
Arthas willingly took up the sword. Even Nerzhul was tricked and then tortured. But Arthas was totally warned, and chose his fate anyway.
The Alliance had a bad leadership structure, and they suffer the consequences of that to this day.
We’re told that but it’s never explained.
And given Arthas was doing what the Mawsworn Kyrian were doing in the prepatch, it’s just all the more confusing
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I mean, I am not ignoring context. You actually just gave my point more context. He has every reason to hate the Forsaken and yet…
Geastures vaguely to the Ebon Balde
Somehow they are acceptable undead?
Gonna slip in my handy dandy AU rewrite class-group factional distribution
The sword was put there through Zovaal’s plans. Nerzhul was tricked by the Burning Legion who was tricked by Zovaal. That was all caused by Zovaal.
Sure it is. It is explained in WC 3. Even the retcons don’t tarnish it.
Arthas was not dominated or mind controlled. He chose his path every step of the way. Uther and Jaina could not abide it. And it was counter to the plans of Zovaal.
The Alliance command structure was based on proximity, instead of merit. Which is why Arthas was able to bring Undeath to Lordaeron and Quelthalas.
The Alliance Prince grabbed it, of his own will, even against the warnings that were all over the place.
The Alliance only had themselves to blame for the Undeath that claims them.
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As I stated before, he trusts Tirions judgement when it comes to the Ebon blade. Varian (and later Anduin cause of game mechanics) basically says that if it wasn’t for Tirion vouching for the player, they would be in chains or worse.
He couldn’t have grabbed it if it wasn’t there.
It was there, and he made the choice to grab it.
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A father leaves a loaded gun on his desk. He tells his kids not to play with guns. One of his children takes it and shoots a sibling. The father is the one responsible for leaving a weapon around for his child to take and harm another with.
I mean they did try and recall his men on orders from the King himself (through Uther). Arthas stopped that by burning the ships and passing off the blame. At that point the Alliance had nothing to do with Arthas picking up Frostmourne. The prince and his army were on their own.
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No that’s fine, I mean we dont’ know how Arthas doing that WENT AGAINST zovaal
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And that has nothing to do with the situation.
Arthas’s father is Terenas… not Zovaal.
Terenas told Arthas “no” - which is a bad thing for a father to tell a bratty heir.
A more accurate comparison would be :
A stranger leaves a gun in an isolated region. A father commands his adult son to stop his search for it, and return home. But the adult son chooses his fate, and he finds the gun, and kills everyone he can.
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I see it only as helping him. If everyone on Azeroth were undead there’d be no one to stop him.
I don’t really have any interest in whether or not the Alliance was responsible for Arthas’ actions or not, I’m just looking forward to Cursewords immediately pivoting to “The Alliance has no claim to Lordaeron” the next time the subject comes up after spending like an hour in this thread arguing affirmatively for the Alliance’s historical Lordaeron legacy
Plus Ner’zhuls plan was to ultimately undermine the Legion, a force that Zovaal needed but only in the short term. Once the Lich King was on Azeroth, who cares about the Legion’s invasion at that point.
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I guess someone forgot the parade they threw when he returned.
Instead of treating him as a mutineer and a traitor, he was welcomed as the Alliance Prince he was.