Why would a death knight even consider joinging the alliance? They are shunned everywhere, and its not the place where one could thrench their hunger for power?
Same goes for the warlock? But then, they are born inside the alliance, where death knights are outcasts?
The greater good and personal beliefs really
Theyāre all tied to the Ebon Blade, but they will likely still have friends and family from life in the Alliance.
Who says death knights join the Alliance?
The Ebon Blade are neutral as a faction. So an Ebon Knight is practically not really a part of either Horde or Alliance.
Iād say if a death knights joins the army of one faction, theyāre pretty much just leaving the Ebon Blade as an organization, or at least taking leave of it while they serve as a soldier.
Otherwise, just imagine the shizshow going down in Acherus every time a Horde and Alliance member bumps into each other.
They do actually join the Horde and Alliance though, and we see the reprecussions of this in Cataclysm with Koltira and Thassarian.
I think alot of people just, overestimate what that loyalty means. Itās probably awkward in Acherus, but I would assume given the emotional state of undeath, or lack thereof, that there wouldnāt be all too many explosions of violence.
Death Knights are, too, born within the Alliance or Horde. If they remember their life before death or not is uncertain, but they are well aware of it. I wouldnāt be surprised if Warlocks and Death Knights are equally outcast, as they werenāt tolerated until they were proven essential, one during the Outland campaign, and the other during the Northrend campaign.
that much could be true, but even as high-ranked members of the Alliance and Horde, both Thassarian and Koltira constantly show a reluctance to attack each other, treating the other as a close ally even during conflicts (e.g Andorhal). I always assumed it to be one of those very rare āThe friend of my enemy is my friendā scenarios.
I imagined itās more like the concept of taking a week off from work and not actually being a part of the Ebon Blade during the time youāre serving the Alliance/Horde.
But thatās of course just my speculation.
But why would they help the Alliance, if they donāt have personal gains? Because in my book, people that turn to evil in general are very selfish. Why would anyone in his right mind turn to the fell or necromancy?
I dont see how joining the alliance helps them gain more power?
The Death Knights of the Ebon Blade didnāt turn to necromancy willingly. They were originally members of the Argent Dawn who died fighting the Lich King, and were deemed powerful enough by him to be raised as one of his champions, rather than as a mindless ghoul or some such.
Once they break free of his control, theyāre still able to remember what their lives were like before they were raised and still value the loved ones they had. We see this with the Leryssa (Thassarianās sister) quests in Borean Tundra.
The Ebon Blade arenāt generally looking for power. During WotLK era they were focused on revenge against the Lich King; After that, the motivations of those who rejoined their people seem to be much the same as any other soldier, and those who chose to remain in Northrend were still working to contain the Scourge, as is implied in one of the WoD Dungeon quests.
Itās only during Legion, when they begin to fall back under the sway of the Lich King, that theyāve started acting more like they did when they were members of the Scourge.
Someone needs to read up on lore.
Death knights not being evil was clarified way back in WotLK.
Well, then explain to me how summoning ghouls, putting plagues on people and using blood magic is not evil?
If they had no evil intent, they would have stepped away from their evil magicsā¦ there is nothing honorable about the methods death knights useā¦ its like saying hitler is not evil, saying that he was just a man with a planā¦
The abilities themselves are not evil.
Nasty, yes, but if used only against the wicked, not evil - in my book.
As for your second paragraph;
Death knight cannot āstep away from their evil magicsā.
That dark, unholy magic is literally the only thing that keeps a death knight āaliveā.
And while some death knights probably might hate themselves enough to go suicidal, I think most of them want to keep fighting evil.
In my book, honor lies in what you do with your abilities, not in the abilities themselves. Those abilities are what the death knights have. They canāt change that. They can only decide how they use those abilities. And if they use them to plague, ghoul, and blood boil the enemies of Azerothā¦
Well, I might not call it honorable, but at least then they are fighting the good fight.
Johnmore above me explained it quite well, but hereās my spin on it.
Let me put you in an irl scenario so itās more relatable.
Youāre in a room, with a man and a little girl in front of you.
The man has a gun at the girlās head and heās about to pull the trigger.
Beside you, thereās a table with a weapon on it. You know that weapon can save the girlās life, but in turn, it would give her would be murderer a slow and painful death.
What do you choose? Let the innocent die so your conscience for not using a weapon you believe should never be used, because it causes such pain, or kill a man with it whoās about to murder a child?
Can you honestly blame someone for using that weapon on the table? I sure canāt.
Same with death knights. They can just peacefully die from not using their abilities, but then, Arthas, Deathwing, the Legion, Sylvanas or whatever main big baddy might just win and enslave/destroy everyone they were trying to protect by letting themselves die by not using their abilities.
Tell that to the people of strormwind
Try and explain that to the dwarves of Ironforge
And then i am not even talking about the night elves.
Do you have any clue what a Ghoul is?
How its created? How much pain is involved in that process?
Regarding the night elves, the people of Stormwind, and the dwarves of Ironforge, are you talking about ghouls specifically, or still death knight abilities in general?
I might be a lore noob, but I donāt see why these races in particular should have a hard time accepting current death knights as not evilā¦ Is it because the dwarves of Ironforge and the people of Stormwind were the peoples who lost the most soldiers to (become) death knights? And because night elves generally hate things that go against nature?
And no, I really donāt know how ghouls are madeā¦ I watched Doronās lore video on YouTube about ghouls, but as much as I love that man, it did not make me much wiser.
As for what they areā¦
I believe they are mindless undead, and if accompanying an unholy death knight, they are under that death knightās control.
I think that is a better existence, being used for good, than just being a part of the Scourge; preying on the innocent or the righteous.
To start with Ghouls are not mindless beingsā¦
to give the most wellknown example of a ghoul
Smeagul in Tolkiens stories is probably what comes closest to a ghoulā¦
Ghouls comes from the middle eastern myths, and are described like demonish beings. Returned from teh afterlife as punnishment.
And its not just Ghouls that makes them Evil. Its most of their abbilities, like spreading a plague. Or draining someoneās health to make yourself stronger. all these things are considered evil acts.
Summoning undead? Really not evil?
Now i can see how a Frost DK definately feels less evil then a Unholy oneā¦ But unholy definately is dark, and darkness being the opposite of light is evil when the light is good.
I mean you can go with all the moralising on dark magic you want, but-
The point of both hero classes is using evil means to achieve good ends. Theyāre anti-heroes.
And also villains if they want to be.
A good example; nuclear weaponry is innately evil, but some would call it a necessary evil for the name of deterrence.
Remember, the Light can be used to do evil just as death knight abilities can be used to do good.
Unless I have misunderstood WoW lore, the Scarlet Crusade is not precisely a āgoodā organization, even though they wield the Light.
The Light, I believe, answers to faith and self-righteousness. The wielder must believe in the Light, and they must believe that their cause is righteous.
I am definietely not very familiar with the ghoul term outside of WoW, but in WoW my impression is that they are just reanimated (and quite decomposed) corpses, without emotions or opinions. (They donāt seem to retain their soul, based on their behavior in WoW.)
As stated earlier, I concede that death knight abilities are nasty, but I still canāt consider the abilities evil.
As Lytherael exemplified, those nasty abilities can be used to save innocent lives; to serve the greater good, or to fight the greater ābadā - in which case I cannot consider them evil.
Furthermore, I have it on good authority that any āpresent dayā
(basically after the DK starting questline in WotLK)
death knight committing evil acts
would be slated for termination
by the Ebon Blade, the Horde, the Alliance, or all three factions.
āThe enemy of my enemy might be my friend, but I do not fraternize with evil.ā
I do agree that āunholyā DKs have less reason to feel good about themselves than āfrostā (and ābloodā might be somewhere between those two), but as I see it, itās all means to an end.
If I - a tormented, remorseful, self-loathing death knight,
who did atrocious things to innocent and good people when Arthas was my āpuppet masterā
to fight those who seek to destroy or enslave Azeroth and its inhabitantsā¦
I will. I will definitely not feel saintly about it, but I will feel better than if I did nothing.
Better than if I just lay down and let myself perish.
(Even though I might sometimes think to myself that I deserve to be terminated, for the horrible crimes I committed under Arthasā¦)
Guys, guys, guys.
Why is this on the Role-playing forum instead of Story?
Threads discussing the lore belong there, not here.
Because in the end its about roleplaying. The main question still remains, are they evil? Where the fact that something is evil is not so much about what they have done, but how normal folks see themā¦
And thats much less lore related then many people here seem to think.