This is one of the more obvious mysteries that Shadowlands pretty much had to have an answer to. We’re halfway through at least. Has anyone stumbled onto anything there?
Maldraxxus was deliberately created with Scourge aestethics. Which is especially confusing, since the devs are distancing maldraxxian necromancy from scourge magic in their tweets.
It seems that the Jailer took the secrets of creating stuff like Mourneblades from the imprisoned Primus.
We have learned that the Lich King was a failed pet project of the Jailer.
We can assume that the trappings of the Lich King came from the Jailer, by the way of the Nathrezim, Denathrius’ agents.
We haven’t been told anything about the Scourge since the prepatch. We have no idea if there are supposed to be unstoppable marauding hordes destroying Azeroth, or if we dealt with the Scourge without much of a problem before we went to the Shadowlands.
So the best guess seems… “There must always be a Lich King” was a lie that the Jailer planted? Whew, good thing it’s not a retcon!
What’s the Madraxxus-Scourge-connection though? Was that cut?
I find it odd too, that the scourge seems to have maldraxian architecture, but it was said that their architecture came from the Nerubian… but who knows anymore?!
maybe the narubians have Maldraxxis as their afterlife, but they are creatures made from the old gods and are of the void and not death?!?!?!
I would assume the Scourge has been defeated. I am guessing years of inactivity left them weakened and open to culling by Azerothians.
There must always be a Lich King, else the Scourge goes mad and a massive hole opens above Azeroth leading us to the worst story Blizzard has ever written.
The connection between Maldraxxus and the Scourge is that the Lich King was forged by the Primus/Runecarver.
In that case no Lich King was needed to keep them from going mad, because they could always just be culled. Heck, if it’s not about something worse than a few marauding zombies, Bolvar could just have let the Scourge be cut down, while preventing them from meaningful self-defense, and taken off the helm when that was done.
“We need a Lich King for a time, to build our strength without Scourge attacks” might have made sense. “We need a Lich King right now, because the world is currently in danger and we need to harness the Scourge as a weapon” might have made some sense. But “there must always be a Lich King” is just wrong, if the Scourge is an imminently defeatable threat.
But the hole in the sky didn’t open because there was no Lich King, but was deliberately opened by destroying the Helm of Domination. Do we have any reason the hole would have opened without that deliberate act of destruction?
Armor and sword, yes. But in domination style, not Maldraxxus style. It doesn’t really explain why the Scourge aetethics are maldraxxian aestetics.
I mean, none of that would have happened without a Lich King to hold them back.
Yeah, but none of them sounds as good as “There must always be a Lich King”. Regardless of how weak the Scourge becomes, having a Lich King to control whatever remains will always be preferable to not having one. Even with how little the free Scourge actually accomplished, things would still be better had Bolvar remained Lich King.
I think it’s meant as “There must always be a Lich King to keep the Scourge in check”.
I mean, that would not happen if there still were a Lich King, that is, someone to wear and protect that helmet.
And if you remember, Denathrius has an army of dimension-jumping vampires, who could probably go break the helmet whenever they want to.
I mean, the Primus made it, in that style, and gave it some of his power to shape dead flesh. Just because it has the “Domination style”, does not mean everything made by it will also have that style. And if you remember, the Scourge in Icecrown had a lot of domination style architecture.
What wouldn’t have happened? The holding back? Sure. But the going mad is no problem, if you can deal with them. And it seems like we did. After a devastating war, nonetheless. More than one war, technically. Its’ kind of a hard sell to claim that Azeroth could defend itself from the Scourge easily after the 4th war, but had no chance after WotLK…
But sure, to hold them back you need a Lich King. It’s just questionable that there was a need to do that at all, and if so, if it was needed for such a long time.
…or anyone else protected it without using it. Literally anybody.
And we are assuming that King Menethil was privy to that information? And assumed that the only way to prevent that was to… put it on someone’es head who would be under the Jailer’s constant influence? Sorry, seems a bit fishy to me.
That Menethil’s words were just a trick by the Jailer/his agents makes muuuuuuch more sense to me. Would you disagree?
Sure. But where does the Maldraxxus-style of the Scourge come from? From the Jailer as well?
I mean, given the choice between even a single person dying to the Scourge and just having someone to keep them in check, I think the latter is preferable.
While numerous undead were running rampant. They are much better suited for fighting to protect the wearer.
No.
Also no.
Indeed, though I fail to see what relevance it has.
Yes. The Scourge was still a threat by the time he was released, and even if that threat turned out to be manageable, it is still better to keep the Scourge restrained.
But even if we ignore that, a better explanation is that Menethil was simply wrong.
That depends on how we place the Kyrian campaign, Redridge quest in WoW time line.
If we assume it showed us the current events, than that means Scourge is at least overrunning the Stormwind Kingdom. Possibly whole of Alliance and maybe also the Horde?
@Davingar
Before I argue on your terms again, just for the record: You aren’t saying that there must always be a Lich King. And you aren’t claiming, that the remark was understood like you are interpreting it now, back when it was made. So you already pretty much conceded it was a retcon. So we aren’t arguing if it is one, we are arguing about how it could be reinterpreted, for the rest to make as much sense as WoW lore ever does.
I am saying that the easiest way to make everything fit together is to have that phrase be a deliberate misdirection from the Jailer, meant to keep a corruptible Lich King in the game.
And you are saying… that it was true “from a certain point of view” because… why exactly?
Only if you cull the Scourge while it was kept in check. Keeping it around doesn’t sound any better to me. It certainly wasn’t the argument we got in WotLK.
Better than who? We could have given it to anyone, essentially. We could have given it to the dragon aspects or the titan keepers to protect, we could have had it taken to the Emerald Dream, we could have given it to the Ashbringer or the Guardian to keep, we could have sent it into space, we could have guarded it with Alloiance, Horde or other soldiers… “It’s best protected where the mindless zombies are” would have a pretty hard time to win in that discussion, and there certainly would have to be one…
…so it can’t be part of the in-universe argument for putting the helmet on Bolvar now, can it?
My claim was that the best explanation of the quote was that it was false information. So…yeah, that it is fishy, especially in hindsight, is kind of the point. Quite relevant, I would say.
…HOW?!
You’re right of course. But since that assumption is needed, and it could quite possibly be wrong, considering the timey-wimey afterlife stuff, I would correct my statement to “We don’t know anything about the Scourge since the prepatch”.
And that’s how it is supposed to be from main story perspective. Us being stuck for now in SL, not knowing anything of outside world.
So I’m afraid it wont be till last patch, where Zoval invades Azeroth or something that we will learn anything new.
Untill than it’s too early to say anything regarding “there must always be a Lich King”. (Other than that it was an excuse to keep the Scourge as a potential threat in game for later use).
I feel like the Jailer wanted to create his own Version of Maldraxxus on Azeroth with the Scourge. the Lichkings personal Domain aside, the Scourge uses Maldraxxus-inspired Architecture, and most of the Things that make Maldraxxus strong, just without their free will.
Undead Footsoldiers combined with Nekropolises, Plague (House of Plagues), Abominations (House of Constructs), Infiltration (House of Eyes), Dark Magic and Summons (House of Rituals) and Elite Soldiers chosen for direkt Service(House of the Chosen).
Maybe it’s the Runecarvers subconcious seeping in, maybe a choice of the Jailer, but the scourge just seems like a lesser imitation of Maldraxxus.
Because it was. I mean, okay, we can accept that it was a misdirection, but then we would need additional evidence to show that. In that case, Occam’s razor leads us to believe Therenas was simply wrong.
But he need not be. There must always be a US president. Should the president lose his position, another will take his place. Of course, this would not be the case if the US ceased, or changed form of government. Therenas spoke based on the information available to him, assuming the Scourge was too strong to be defeated. However, the Scourge was weakened and then defeated, meaning the rule no longer applies, or rather, is not that important.
You seem to think Therenas said it as an “else the world will end” sort of thing, when he simply could have meant it as “it is better to have someone in charge than not”.
It is more a case of inability. Like, even if we dedicated all available resources to fighting the passive scourge, we would not be able to kill all of them, they could create more, and would harm, even a few people.
For all we know, the scourge might be growing in secret and strike at us at some point in the future.
Not better than who, better than what. What being fighting us.
Yup. We chose Bolvar.
I think it would be a pretty easy win. We will not spend resources on it, and we have an army that is easy to organize.
No, Bolvar just wanted it.
Yes, but you went one step beyong, saying it was false information given to us intentionally, when it could just have been human error.
Oh, sorry, I thought you were caught up on the story. Basically, the Runecarver created the Helm of Domination and Frostmourne, and he was revealed to be the Primus.
And Uther too? Because his ghost in Halls of Reflection says the same. Where they both just assuming wrongly? Now that we know that the Jailer was in the possession of both their soul fragments that seems to be too much of a coincidence.
But yeah, we won’t know for sure until we return to Azeroth.
I mean, two people who underwent the exact same circumstances having similar, and wrong beliefs, does not really warrant much apprehension.
Like, I get that you think the phrase “Where they both just assuming wrongly?” is meant to sound unlikely, but it really is not. I find, “A death god a plane of reality away who the Lich King did not even know about gave two very specific souls pieces of false information for some reason.” to sound a lot less likely.
I assume the Jailer has a soul-fragment from every person killed by frostmourne, so that is not really a coincidence.
What would the Jailer even stand to benefit from, keeping the Lich King role filled?
Well, we don’t know what his end goal is yet, but having someone as powerful as the Lich King as his servant is certainly useful. Although we know Bolvar and, to an extent, Arthas resisted his control.
But I think most of all he didn’t want us to destroy the helm of domination and thus open the way to the Shadowlands before he was at the peak of his power.
But didn’t the Shadowlands happen becasue Sylvanas destroyed the helm?
So if Bolvar just put down the helm and walked away the only problem we would have would be the scourge running around and killing everyone. But but if they all would they there would be no problem at all?
“There must always be, a retcon”. Don’t worry about such details, the retcon train will be with you shortly weaving a story of how it wasn’t the lich king that controlled the scourge, but some magical humpdy dumpdy in the Maw where the helm was made.
Because as we all know, nothing escapes the maw. Except armour pieces and maw walkers.
