I forgot to mention… I agree with the “It doesn’t make sense” and lean towards it’s just lazy writing. I highly doubt that if you physically destroyed his body, as in ground his bones, skin, armor and helmet into dust or incinerate it with immense fire (be it from red dragons or powerful mages), or at the very least destroyed everything but the helmet that Arthas wouldn’t be ESSENTIALLY dead. He may be able to still come back at some point but it would be a huge delay.
I doubt his body is indestructible unless you damage it at the Frozen Throne and only there. And having said that, that leaves the question of what exactly the Frozen Throne does to protect him. Does it act as anchor for his soul or that of Ner’zhul’s or both of them or whatever? Does it offer him sort of magical protection against damage from everywhere else?
To be fair, Uther was saying that the Lich King could only be killed at the Frozen Throne. And Arthas wasn’t the Lich King when Sylvanas’ ambushed and almost killed him.
If Blizzard ever decides to revisit that, that’s an easy way to explain things, especially with the confusion on exactly how many fragments Uther’s soul was turned into and how it all relates to one another.
the only thing you have to do to stop a person from being ressurected is burn the body. I would imagine that’s why if that is Arthas’s remains in SW they are just burnt remains in a box.
I would like to think so. But I imagine that you need to do a little more to Arthas than just that. Assuming you could even get him to the point that you could incinerate his body outside of the Frozen Throne
Arthas was holding the scourge back until he could claim us as his ultimate crew of Death Knights.
Arthas wasn’t the Lich King at that point. Ner’zhul was. Arthas didn’t become the Lich King until after he placed the Helm of Domination on his head and defeated Ner’zhul in his mind palace.
At ice crown, yeah, when the players are inside his layer. Not holding the entirety of them back from destroying their enemies: all the rest of the world
Actually that would be pretty cool, but could only be done once and not for someone like Arthas.
Like imagine in the Vault Rhazagathetaysdgfhjsbdhjcfbh whatever her name is is all boasting in the cutscene before the boss fight, or even after it, doing a whole “You’ve done nothing, I’ve already one, I’ll be back, yadayadayada.”
Then Galakrond or the big Earth Primal Protodrake just swoops down and swallows her in one gulp before flying off.
No, it was his scheme all along. It is why he didn’t just kill us whenever he showed up prior. It is also why he waits until he is nearly defeated before he kills us instantly. Everything in Northrend in relation to the scourge was a test.
That’s doesnt make sense. Tell me why he needs an elite cadre of death knights if the scourge is already capable of defeating the forces of azeroth if not for arthas “holding them back” Holding them back from what? making the heroes of azeroth not… death knight-able? If he thinks the scourge needs to held back then he’s already capable at all times of turning the heroes he so desires into DK’s whenever he wants. He also doesn’t need the elite force of DK’s if the scourge needs to be “held back”
Because us, the heroes were the most powerful soldiers at that time and with us under his command, his army would be quite literally a unstoppable force of Undeath.
Eventually he would have converted the entirety of Azeroth into undeath, because in his mind, that was the only way to unite everyone under one banner and defeat any future threats.
Not even Deathwing would have been able to defeat him at that point, seeing as the Lich King can only die atop Icecrown Citadel.
(Last point is speculation. I have no concrete facts outside of we know about the LK being too powerful to be killed outside of his throne atop Icecrown.)
Pretty much yeah, though DW holds more raw power than the LK as an entity (not just Arthas, Ner’zhul, and Bolvar too). He also wouldn’t have been able to completely conquer Azeroth, at least not by himself considering that the Dragonflights held their full power back then. He also had to worry about Azshara, for instance.
So… assuming the Lich King died or was otherwise neutralized and the Scourge was “unleashed” would Azeroth’s “heroes that were the most powerful soldiers” have been able to defeat them or not?
If they were able to defeat them, then that means there mustn’t “always be a Lich King” to hold back the scourge because the heroes can defeat them and the Azeroth’s forces don’t need to fear the “unleashed” scourge anymore then the scourge they were alreay fighting, because they would win. If the heroes can’t defeat them then there’s no reason for the Lich King to have held the scourge back, because he could have turned all of Azeroth undead including the “heroes” and reached all his goals anyways.
There’s literally zero logical reason for Arthas to hold anything back. It would have been far better writing if whatever good that was left of Arthas had been subconsciously stalling the Scourge so someone could kill the Lich King
I think the in-universe answer is no. But it has an asterisk.
No, the heroes of the Horde and Alliance would not have beaten back the entire Scourge. But the combined armies of the Horde and Alliance? With the very probable aid of the Dragon Aspects who hadn’t broke bad? With all the other not-Horde and not-Alliance groups who have a vested interest in not being made into undead? Possibly some Naaru too?
Maybe, so why take that risk? Why not wait until you have the most powerful super-soldiers (IE the player characters) to lead that mass army?
Why throw all your resources at trhe world all at once when you can throw some of those resources at acquiring more powerful resources?
EDIT: I’m not saying that all is the actual reason, but it works well enough.
That’s what I mean. I’m assuming all of Azeroth’s forces, (or at least the Horde, Alliance, And Dragons (sans the Blues) because they’re already actively fighting Arthas) and maybe some of outland’s vs the Scourge. The scourge being, most definitely, thousands if not a few hundred thousand of Azeroth’s former forces.
And my question isn’t why didn’t Azeroth’s forces unleash everything on the Scourge, my question is why “there must always be a Lich King” and i’m told it’s because the Lich King, by controlling the scourge is holding them back and restraining them… and I’m pretty sure it was implied that a… chaotic horde of rampaging scourge would be far more devastating than the Scourge we got. (Which is also nonsense because an organized military is always more powerful than a disorganized mob)
So my question is why would Arthas ever have a logical reason to not let the scourge rampage/why would he hold them back intentionally? It’s just bad writing imo
Why unleash everything you have until you have everything you want?
Why put the entire world into immediate threat, forcing every possible force to commit to fighting you when you can just do so later with a band of super-soldier mega-zombies leading the way? Why not take the time of pressing the Horde and Alliance enough to send their best people, kill those best people, raise those best people, and then throw everything at the world?
It boils down to this; if you can choose between sending a zombie horde or sending a zombie horde with bazookas… Which do you send?
Arthas likely wanted the zombie horde with bazookas. I cannot blame him because that sounds cooler.
Arthas too is bound by the laws of the Rule of Cool.
I see. I misunderstood you. So, essentially, you’re saying that Arthas is afraid of risking failure and wanted a bigger advantage before pressing his luck. And I would tend to agree… unfortunately that isn’t what Blizzard tells us.
Blizzard tells us that the Scourge is so unimaginably powerful that if it wasn’t for Arthas holding them back they would have wiped us all out a long time ago… thusly “there must always be a Lich King” to “keep the Scourge in check” as it were. Which… if they’re worried about losing to the forces of good and life, because of… 40 or so heroes, then they’re not nearly as powerful as we’re told to believe and the scourge doesn’t need to be held back. There doesn’t need to always be a Lich King, as Bolvar claims. Unless Blizzard can tell us some other reason why Azeroth needs the Lich King to be around.
As a way to explain it all away in a fashion that’s slightly reasonable, yes. The truth is, there is no explanation beyond “Arthas held back the Scourge for reasons”, but I like to try and think of ways to explain their off-the-cuff choices.
Oh I appreciate that. And your responses seem like logical enough reasons based on what we know already. But I’m more interested in what Blizzard ACTUALLY intended… or if it’s all just garbage writing.
If you read Arthas novel, you’d realize how correct you are. Arthas liked to strategize and the idea of having champions of the Horde and Alliance leading his nearly indestructible army was his goal and he didn’t just want to rule the world. He wanted to rule it with the best and brightest leading his forces. Basically,
