I have just recently decided that this bothers me, but why on earth would the forsaken choose to use skeletal horses? Stripping a horse of vital muscle tissue and tendons makes it even less reliable and hinders its endurance. Before the Storm confirms that the forsaken, on the whole, are far less durable than their still-living counterparts, which shouldn’t be surprising considering how their protective flesh casings are rotting away and vital bone joints are just exposed.
Turning a horse undead offers absolutely no pragmatic benefit. So, do they do this to gain the horse’s allegiance? Well, that shouldn’t be necessary, should it? Horses are beasts. They will obey any and all commands given by their handler or trainer. I sincerely doubt that the forsaken’s decision to align themselves with the Horde caused the United Guild of Horse Labor to unequivocally denounce the forsaken and offer their services exclusively to the Alliance.
This is because the United Guild of Horse Labor does not exist and horses don’t care about your political affiliation.
That and the fact that an undead animal is running around means massive magical forces are at work. I think that magic can certainly overcome some loose tendons and muscle.
I mean, “the rule of cool” is as good an excuse as anything, but I’m more or less just poking fun at the fact that, from a purely practical standpoint, undead horses literally don’t make sense.
Before the Storm talking about the undead was so cringey.
The most memorable and powerful raid boss we ever faced didn’t fall apart with 2 hits. In fact, Arthas beat the crap out of us and we needed deus ex machina to save us from him.
Sometimes I wish that specific characterization could be rewritten. It’s like Golden completely forgot the undead are put together by necromantic magic powerful enough to raise a man from death and keep him alive forever. Like, that doesn’t sound like the type of magic that would let someone fall apart or be weak.
Undead strength doesn’t come from muscle. Their muscles, just like every other part of their bodies, aren’t what animates them. That’s why you could strip one down to a skeleton.
The real question here should be: are the horses that have been turned into undead given the same choice as the Forsaken; do they have free will? Or are they enslaved by the magic that raised them…like the Scourge.
Horses are not motorcycles. Okay sure, in game Forsaken can ride whatever they please but in real life, horses are spooked very easily. Comes from being a prey animal. Even with war horses there’s a limit to how much instinct the training can surpress. (And you have to breed for war horses to boot.)
Most animals don’t like dead things because it means disease (that’s actually why animals evolved to have a gag reflex and to find things gross. It’s a reflex to stop you from poisoning yourself.) and Undead exude a palpable aura of undeath. That’s going to be hard to convince a horse to let that sit on top of them. Especially after the sharp exposed bone edges cut into their back.
Arthas/the Lich King is the “ultimate type” of undead. Death Knights and Dark Rangers are “superior” undead (their rot has been significantly slowed and they are fresher looking plus far stronger). Forsaken are raised in a manner that leaves them rotting and frail (stupid imo). There are different tiers of undead and Forsaken appear to be lower tiered.
There’s a huge difference in the Lich King and Forsaken. But yeah, I agree on Before the Storm being really stupid for more than just this reason.
As for undead mounts, according to one of the mount descriptions, living mounts are afraid of the undead. Undead mounts also have the perks of never tiring, never hunger or thirst, and are very low maintenance.
Pretty sure there’s more to our undead than just bodies otherwise we’d crumble like ghouls when they die. Afterall our epic horses even have a glowing effect. Necromatic magic is strong.
