Specifically the WoTLK part. I hate the fact that his “plan” was to lure the strongest of us to Icecrown in order to raise us. Why i hate it? Because the next scene tells us how the Scourge is basically unstoppable and if there “isnt’t a LK” they would just go on a rampage and kill everyone.
So you are telling me that Arthas can’t just do that and raise everyone after he kills us? When you already have the power to kill everyone just by letting the Scourge loose, why bother finding champions.
It was explained that the fraction of good Arthas was keeping the Lich King from unleashing the Scourge on Azeroth.
Got ya. Spending more time with the soul consuming sword which corrupted him made his good side stronger. Funny how the good fraction of him had no problem with killing his dad and everyone else in Lordaeron.
If you have a problem with that, tweet Blizzard and complain to them. I don’t make the story. I’m telling you what happened, since clearly you don’t remember.
That’s not that much of an unpopular opinion, though. Arthas’ fame came from WCIII, and many people were disappointed by his cartoonish behaviour in WoW, not to mention the “there must always be a Lich King” nonsense they are retroactively justifying now.
WoLKs story has the honor of being one of WoWs best expansion stories, but that’s mostly because the competition isn’t exactly fierce, and the argument is more about which is worse than which is really good…
Personally I love Arthas’ storyline.
…
… up until WLK. I don’t really think he got the ending he deserved. It wasn’t the worst, but it wasn’t all that satisfying either. I won’t pretend to know what a better ending might be, as endings can be really difficult. All-in-all, I’ll settle for an ending that isn’t catastrophic. Somehow we get very few of those.
I agree with this, but… at least when Arthas said “you truly are the finest champions of Azeroth”, it kind of meant something. Because you actually had to fight him, which was not all that trivial back in the day. No LFR easy mode. Nowadays we’re being told we’re the hero of the universe whenever we click on a glowing item.
First of all, the way Arthas was portrayed changed quite a lot over time. Originally the scourge was a force that could wipe everything on their way. But later on Arthas from being someone with a lot of potential even when he was alive, turned into someone, who even as a death knight had suddenly no chances against Uther and only direct interference of Ner’zhul saved Arthas, and so on.
Secondly, actually Shadowlands have a chance to make his story more… sensible I guess. For example, why would Arthas try to get rid of a part of him? Maybe that was precisely the point. If the helm of domination never lost the connection with its true owner, it could be his influence that convinced Arthas to weaken himself. Why? Maybe because he was too strong so it was not possible to pass the helm forward to someone else? Or maybe it was necessary to unleash all the souls collected by frostmourne at the same time? Or both. Either way we might arrive at the situation where Arthas was not fully Arthas and our victory was a result of the original owner sabotaging him, not an achievement of Tirion & co.
they might aswell not say anything if they actually said that, because that’s a lazy pathetic excuse lmao.Makes no sense at all.But then again it’s no suprise , WCIII lore and WoW lore felt like made entirely by different people with different mindset.
Can’t forget them butchering Kael’thas in TBC after building such a epic tale for him in WCIII.Arthas didn’t have it as worse as him, but still got ruined slightly.His end tale could’ve been more epic, less cartoony.Still, as funny as it’s , it should be considered ‘‘ok’’ by blizzard ‘‘standarts’’.Could’ve been much worse, like ton of other lore chars.
While I disagree , it is an opinion and you are free to share it! I find Arthas really interesting tbh!
There must always be a Lich King was and is bull.
Without leadership maybe Northrend is vunerable. Not the rest of Azeroth.
Hordes of unthinking leaderless undead are manageble.
Without a Lich King what realistically would have happened would be the stronger surviving undead becoming warlords fighting each for dominance. A lot of former scourge undead regaining free will who may or may not join the Forsaken. And Northrend in danger.
He’s been bad since WC3.
Proud and full of himself, he takes on too much in fighting the Scourge, makes difficult choices that lead to atrocity as a necessary evil and then pursues Mal’ganis ruthlessly out of vengeance and takes up a cursed sword as yet another step to do bad things for good.
He defeats the dreadlord and the scourge forces, then sprints off into the frozen wastes to… join the scourge? Fast forward and he returns an obvious villain decked out in skulls, set to genocide the people he gave it all to save from the undead.
That part has always been bad writing and further post hoc elaboration didn’t make it better beyond hinting at Arthas’ unbridled ego, narcissism and demanding possessiveness. These would be interesting traits were he not written as a completely different character later on, bereft of such flaws to exploit and reduced to an echo-y voiced cartoon villain.
It would have made a better story to have Arthas return from Northrend a cold eyed and hard hearted prince, scarred by his experiences with his old issues roiling underneath. Inheriting his father’s crown, he’d become even more self assured and grim, bringing that sinister sword to future battles and further atrocities. A cruel, harsh figure to balance the classical good guy Alliance image. He has been proven correct in all that he did and he will NEVER allow Lordaeron to fall!
Inflexible, proud, ruthless and probably a bit touched by his new sword, Arthas, King of Lordaeron becomes an important figure in Wrath of the Lich King as Ner’zhul calls for him. The long game seeded with the sword leads Arthas to incredible acts of brutality against friends and foes in this second Northrend war that alienates him from old allies.
As the armies of Alliance, Horde and Argent Crusade batter down the walls of Icecrown, Arthas, scarred further by the Lich King’s trap at the Wrath Gate charges ahead intent on finishing this madness and destroying Ner’zhul for all the death he inflicted on Lordaeron’s people. Arthas, dark king and hero of his now terrified nation battles the Lich King alongside Azeroth’s heroes and as the fiend finally falls, King Arthas accepts the call to take his place on the Frozen Throne in a final act of sacrifice.
The Helm of Domination is placed on his troubled, weary brow and Arthas redeems his past cruelty by becoming the Jailor of the Damned, forever to keep the Scourge at bay and protecting his people. And Queen Jaina cries.
I don’t know, that seems like an alright alternative.
“Whomsoever takes up this blade shall wield power eternal. Just as the blade rends flesh, so must power scar the spirit.”
I feel like you’ve missed quite the large chunks of lore from Warcraft 3 to come to most of your conclusions about it being bad writing.
EDIT: Adding a quote from the Frostmourne chapter to further highlight the lore you’re missing:
Epilogue
After taking his vengeance upon Mal’Ganis, Prince Arthas wandered off into the frozen wastelands of Northrend.
Tormented by Frostmourne’s maddening voice, Arthas lost the last vestiges of his sanity.
Now, driven by the sword’s dark will, Arthas plans to return home to Lordaeron and claim his just reward…
No, it’s quite genuinely bad writing making large jumps to skip character development for the sake of drama and the shock value of the regicidal cinematic. Arthas’ fall was a clumsy construct and the fundamentals of his character arc took a complete turn for no particular reason but to land him in the villain protagonist role.
I gave an example of a more believable character evolution of the prince who let his pride and hatred rule and lead him to darkness, sacrificing nobility and ideals to stop the Scourge. He could’ve served a role akin to an Alliance Garrosh, warmongering and growing into a liability to his faction.
I have no idea what you’re talking about.
The human campaign followed his arc bit by bit, leaving no poignant moment out.
???
Did you like, miss the part where Frostmourne was cursed to eat the soul of its wielder and the entire expedition to Northrend was a ploy masterfully crafted by both Ner’zhul and Mal’ganis that led Arthas to commit progressively more heinous acts the further he went in his hunt for vengeance?
Yes, hello, good evening.
That’s called the Culling of Stratholme.
Pretty sure he was…
Told horribly in a way where Arthas’ eventual choice to go off and join the enemy he had been fighting all along seems a forced and ridiculous development. As a self contained story, not tacking on the decade of additional WoW content, it fails.
One step of many demonstrating how his battle with monsters turned him into a monster. Such is his tragedy and should serve to reinforce his hatred of the undead and their demonic masters; a grim and ruthless warrior against the darkness to proud to admit his own.
The end of his campaign in WC3 was nonsense. Maybe if the angle was that Frostmourne was a trap to mind control him but it wasn’t and he reversed his goals between the campaign mission and ending cinematic.
It’s poorly written and just plain bad. Adding the context of later WoW drowns out some of the noise but so much could be done so much better.
I would suggest you play Warcraft 3.
You clearly have no knowledge of anything you’re typing.
Mind control as an unthinking minion. I should add qualifiers to everything that I type but that would take ages. Arthas’ story as told up until he goes full Scourge takes a completely unreasonable turn to its buildup and that is bad writing. I see no reason to defend it no matter how attached one might be to his character.
You’re way off the mark if you think I’m attached to Arthas.
What you’re doing is spouting completely incongruent and factually incorrect reviews on a piece of storytelling you haven’t honestly deigned to analyse.
Things such as:
Show that you haven’t actually played the game.
Everything starting from the second chapter of the human campaign was building up towards Arthas’ eventual fall to the dark side. Climbing a ramp where every step is a progressively worse deed than the one before.
Uther the Lightbringer: Ah, good timing, lad. I sent two of my best knights in to parley with the orc leader. They should be returning shortly.
Two horses arrive at the encampment without knights on them.
Uther the Lightbringer: Damn. These orcs will never surrender.
Arthas: Then let’s get in there and destroy the beasts!
Uther the Lightbringer: Remember, Arthas, we are paladins. Vengeance cannot be a part of what we must do. If we allow our passions to turn to bloodlust, then we will become as vile as the orcs.
Arthas: Yes, Uther.The Blademaster kills the humans.
Arthas: Slay the orcs! Slay them all!
And Frostmourne was a cursed weapon, it was made to corrupt. Deprive the owner of a soul and subject him to the commands of the Lich King. Arthas as you see him with Frostmourne is a soulless husk obeying the whispers of the blade, but somehow you’re unable to spot a ‘mind controlling’ factor into this?
Arthas: You waste your breath, Mal’Ganis. I heed only the voice of Frostmourne now.
Mal’Ganis: You hear the voice of the Dark Lord. He whispers to you through the blade you wield. What does he say, young human? What does the Dark Lord of the Dead tell you now?
Arthas: He tells me that the time for my vengeance has come.
Experience the story first, then make your review.
Please.
Several times in fact and it’s a consistently terrible chapter.
And him turning to the scourge after fighting against it was badly written.
He has his faculties, making choices in accord with his own sadistic whims. He isn’t a robot. It isn’t mind control any more than that of the lich king’s command.
Not establishing the nature of this makes Arthas’ sudden twist of serving the lich king he fought against as a 0 setup shock twist that isn’t nearly as clever as it’s presented. That is my stance, unwavering in my criticism of a poorly handled arc.
Welp, I raise my hands.
Some people just love to be wrong.