I think the players actually made Arthas story better by understanding his situation, while Blizzard did not.
I am not some type of lore master, so maybe there are examples of this, but as far as I know, every time when someone talks about Arthas and things he did as a paladin, they say how he was “man-child”, “spoiled prince” and how “he did evil things”. Not once have I seen characters admit that maybe, Arthas made difficult choices and it destroyed him, on top of everything being stacked against him to begin with.
Don´t get me wrong, I understand that opinion of characters =/= opinion of writers, but these are WoW writers. And when literally everyone says “Arthas was spoiled man-child who did bad things in his life”, I don´t think the writers do it to portray how these characters are wrong, I think they actually believe it (of course, this is just my assumption).
Meanwhile, players rarely support this narrative, rather often say how Arthas was actually right to exterminate population of Stratholme, so in our minds, story of Arthas is about someone who did everything right, but the tragic thing is that he couldn´t win no matter what he did.
Arthas was absolutely right to purge Stratholme. It’s a weird narrative that Blizzard likes to push that he was wrong / evil in doing it.
It sets a precedent for wishy-washy characters who can’t or won’t do the necessary (and in Stratholme’s case merciful) acts needed to save their people…
Reminder that Uther was happy to condemn everyone in the city to becoming Scourge so that he could preserve his conscience.
I also feel like Arthas could have solved alot of problems regarding the purge had he explained his thought process, but that is on the writers. Rather than go “We must Purge”, and Uther saying “No.” And Arthas saying “Okay, you are banished.”
Or, that can be seen as the first proper step into his downward spiral, with the huge breaking point being destroying his own fleet with mercenaries.
To be fair, this isn’t a problem with WoW alone. Take the critically acclaimed Breaking bad™; a lot of the problems in the overall story wouldn’t have existed if characters just spoke to each other.
That is true yes. And yeah, fair points. All things considered, it was a quite urgent moment, so I can see that.
However, regarding the purge again. I heavily dissliked how they treated it in WoW compared to wc3.
In wc3, while Arthas sends Uther away, the townsfokes are either turned, or clearly disorted, walking strangley or sleeping. And Arthas quietly puts them down as swift as possible.
In WoW, they have civilians walk up to speak to him, and he basically goes “Sorry, bud.” smirks and kills. Not exactly like that, but they really hammer in the “THIS IS WRONG” in the way he acts with the first human npc he kills.
I like how he shows this unsettling ego and undercurrent when he “lovingy” tells Jaina to never deny him. Believing that’s okay shows something about him and the way he views the world long before any purging.
This is my biggest problem with the story of Culling. I absolutely understand that Uther and Jaina were unwilling to do it. It was extremely difficult decision and not everyone is able to do them.
But the fact that nobody recognizes it afterwards is what´s incredibly bad writing, especially since it wasn´t act of Culling that drove Arthas over the edge, it was Uther´s and Jaina´s refusal to help him with it which left him basically alone, without his mentor and woman he loved to act as emotional support during hardest times of his life.
No, instead Arthas bad, he killed everyone in Stratholme, if he didn´t do it, mages in Dalaran would magically solve something in span of hours even though they apparently haven´t managed to solve it yet (hell, even Alexstrasza couldn´t help Brindenbrad).
This sums up every Warcraft III event brought into WoW.
Seriously, try doing Arthas storyline in Dragonblight, where we help spirits of his fallen soldiers and look at it through eyes of someone who haven´t played Warcraft III and doesn´t know the story.
It´s just a mess of voice lines from entire 8th mission cobbled together.
Blizzard’s hard on for morality is a detriment to this game; War Crimes is the biggest and most steaming pile of I have ever had the misfortune to read. And i finished the Eragon series. I’d rather have Christopher Paolini spit ball fantasy concepts at me while i’m hung upside down from the ceiling than go near that book again.
Basically, what this establishes as canon, is that Jaina is physically repulsed when she sees people taking necessary action. Only a complete lack of reason is acceptable for Shaggy Proudmoore.
I unironically enjoyed the Inheritance books. They’re not perfect, but they’re cool teen fantasy literature with a bunch of fun concepts. The way they beat Galbatorix after all the build up was though.
Fun fact, that particular bit is in the game because the teams doing the story and quest design for Stonetalon didn’t communicate with the one responsible for the overall narrative and main storylines. They were under the impression that Garrosh is meant to be an honorable warrior while it had already been decided by others that he will be an evil military overlord and raid boss later on.
I have ever had the misfortune to read. And i finished the Eragon series. I’d rather have Christopher Paolini spit ball fantasy concepts at me while i’m hung upside down from the ceiling than go near that book again.
I levelled a Nightborne recently, and I loved his character in Stonetalon…