That’s because Bolvar is a weird dragonfire exception and Arthas was a second gen death knight, which have a serious lack of being interesting. The 3rd gen are commonly (I don’t know of any exceptions) all true undead.
Pretty sure Arthas transitioned from living to undeath, especially since we found his hearth outside of his body in Icecrown at one moment…
I like to think Necromancers transition in the same way
Arthas is undead, there was a questline in wrath where he pulled out his heart and had some soppy moment where he killed the last of his humanity in some doomer ritual.
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Ayup. Don’t have the exact quote, but in the Arthas novel, the guy himself realizes that mortal limitations seem to have left him without him even realizing it for some time. As I recall, it was immediately before the invasion of Quel’Thalas. This is probably the point where he had begun to slip from the mortal coil.
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https://www.wowhead.com/news=304807/blizzards-allied-race-and-pandaren-death-knight-preview
Death Knights for Pandaren and other Allied Races will be available on the 14th, and you will be able to earn heritage armour by levelling an allied race DK to 110.
According to the blue post, heritage armour for the Pandaren might also be confirmed with this patch, though I’m inclined to think it’s an error as every other heritage set has been previewed beforehand.
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It also confirms no DK skins. It was a fool’s hope at best, but hope nonetheless.
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I hold out hope that they’ll add them on a later date instead! Gotta keep believing in that dream! 
No dk skins is a huge failure on their part, but to be expected. It’s funny because even the four horsemen you meet have undead skins. They don’t even want important NPC:s with alive skins but they’re releasing the dk:s half-done anyway.
The new dk eyes look good on most races, but for races with small eyes like orcs and male nelves it’s a major drop in quality. My orc dk is one of my oldest characters, now his eyes are completely empty of color/glow when using any helmet on him. Can’t say I want to play him after 8.3.
As for other 8.3 stuff, the patch is almost here and you still can’t tmog warglaives on the PTR, so I suppose it’s intentional. Though disappointing in my opinion, warglaive(s) on a frost dk with wraithchill looked interesting. No, obviously wouldn’t be an IC thing, but what legendaries would be anyway.
You mean the Four Horsemen that are races that existed in-game when Death Knights originally was added? Should the allied races get DK skins? Of course, but you can’t really compare 'em with the Four Horsemen, who are races with the DK skin from day 1.
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Well, time to change my dug-in views on Death Knights with lively looking skintones - or at the least pretend that it doesn’t bother me half again as much as it does.
I want to believe Mori. I do. I’m a hopeful lad, but I have been hurt before…
Looks wistfully at his stack of Dance Studio t-shirts. A tear is shed.
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My point is they could’ve easily had alive skins on any important death knights npc:s up to this point, but they haven’t because they seem to (propably) know it looks worse. And then allied race dk:s get released without any.
achtualy, If you look under Darions helmet with his older model (maybe even with his current, dunno) you can actually see him with a more tanned human skin; Not the DK one.
His ‘‘Ebon Watcher’’ model however does have the DK skin.
I guess it’s good they keep that clean-skinned monstrosity under the helmet then!
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In WoW, isn’t undeath a state caused by your soul not being completely (properly?) attached to your being?
When Arthas took up Frostmourne, his soul was the first one claimed by the sword (Claimed, as in, "imma hang on to this bruh, you just keep on swinging) He basically carried his soul around in a sword, but didn’t have much say in where it actually belongs.
Sword claims his soul, causing it to be only partially attached to Arthas, rendering him undead.
But despite all this, Arthas was still a sentient one - not a ghoul, a geist or any sort of abomination. He could think and possibly could feel aswell. Or perhaps these “mortal limitations” don’t necessarily refer to “feelings being a weakness” but still having a connection to mortality aka “shoot an arrow through my heart and I’ll die.” Tearing out your own heart certainly wouldn’t cut, no pun intended, were you still alive.
But this is just me trying to make sense out of a fantasy world - or debating something that doesn’t really require a debate. But hey, fantasy, it’s neat.
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We’ve all been hurt before, brother! But cling onto hope, no matter how hard Blizzard tries to destroy it! We can’t let evil win, no matter what!
We did by having any night elf survive Teldrassil.
n00b
“He stood straddling the worlds; he was alive after a fashion, but the Lich King’s soft whispers were calling him death knight, and the leeching of color from his hair and skin and eyes seemed to indicate that it was more than a title. He did not know; he did not care.”
This is post-Frostmourne, pre-invasion of Quel’Thalas.
In a fashion that is more often the case than not in Warcraft, we aren’t explicitally told what his status is. It does seem to heavily imply that he is undead at this point, as his sense of smell seems to have dulled to the point of a decomposing army not even registering with him. This chapter (as well as the next) also repeatedly hammers home how most emotions and concerns are of no consequence to him.
With exceptions.
““Yes,” he said, keeping his voice steady in front of the demon, “I’ve damned everyone and everything I’ve ever loved in his name, and I still feel no remorse. No pity. No shame.” And in his heart of hearts, there came another whisper, but not from Frostmourne: Liar.”
So he’s not bereft of all conscience, not even at that point, which might be an angle to work in DK role-play. That beneath the icy facade, there might just be a shred of humanity left.
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That’s what he ‘‘kills’’ in his dream state before he wakes up.
And there’s a remnant of that part still: Mattias Lehner, whom we meet in Icecrown. Guess what his name is a anagram for? Arthas Menethil.
He wasn’t when we killed him. That was kind of a big point for the Shadowmourne stuff with Muradin and Jaina.
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Quite right.