Why does the Lich King raise the dead? (9.2 Spoilers)

Lore Story
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So… the Lich King supposedly is a tool of the Jailer. His power comes from the Helm of Domination, which, as the name says, is a tool to dominate wills. Domination magic isn’t restricted to the dead, it works against the living, and even constructs, as well. The Jailer might have an army of totally broken in souls at hand, which might be especially easy to control, but the Lich King pretty much uses the souls of whoever is at hand, so that when his domination is gone, we get kinda normal people.

So… why exactly was the threat of the Lich King an undead Army? Why raise undead at all? Why not just enslave whomever? The switch from making the Lich King the ultimate necromancer to making him a junior dominator kinda leaves the necro-part out entirely, doesn’t it?

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Possibly because the Lich King had the same final objective of the Jailer…which turns out that is simply to create an eternity of torment. So if he dominated and controlled living people right away, they would be slaves, but they would still be “at peace” I guess. Controlling their broken souls while they were in rotting bodies that were not their own and fighting against their living relatives is probably the kind of torment that both the Jailer and the Lich King had in mind…much more fun for them :stuck_out_tongue:

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Anduin disagrees.

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The target of the Jailer has always been Azeroth. The Lich King weakened her by transforming two of her biggest armies into walking corpses, which made her more vulnerable. Zovaal’s goal was similar to the Burning Legion’s and Sargeras, it was easy to let them do whatever they wanted while pursuing his own ambitions.

As for the technical parts, the power of Domination wielded by the Lich King doesn’t work on living beings. Zovaal didn’t invent this magic, I guess he didn’t know how to teach the Lich King something he didn’t know how to do himself yet.

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Why, though? What’s special about the dead?

Zovaal does know how to dominate the living, though. The helmet does exactly that with its wearer.

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Ask the Primus, he’s the one who invented that magic and made both Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination

That power is contained in the Helm itself only, and Zovaal isn’t the one who imbued it with this power. That was the Primus. Zovaal had most likely not been able to develop the Domination magic he used on Anduin yet in my opinion.

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The whole point here is that domination magic is a wholly different thing from necromancy. Domination magic is related to the cosmic language we get to experience in 9.2, and a much more fundamental thing. And we know that it does work on the living. What we don’t know is why death would figure into it at all.

And pushing this problem on the Primus doesn’t answer that question, it just moves it around. So you think it wasn’t the Jailer who planned to dominate just the dead, but the Primus. Great. That doesn’t answer the question “why” at all, though.

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What you don’t want to take into consideration for some reason though, is that there are two different types of Domination magic. That’s why I talked about the Primus, who imbued Frostmourne and the Helm with his own, original version of this magic. He himself will tell us that we need Anduin’s help to understand and fight Zovaal’s Domination magic in 9.2. Both ‘strands’ do not work the same way, and the original one invented by the Primus very obviously only works on the dead, which is completely in par with the constructs and disgusting practices of Maldraxxus.

Oh but it does. Controlling the dead means more soldiers for Maldraxxus, although I doubt that the initial plan of the Primus was to use it on civilians. He created it for this purpose, that Zovaal later twisted.

My point is that Zovaal didn’t only seek to dominate the dead, he just didn’t have the means to dominate the living when the Lich King was sent to Azeroth. All he could do was try to control the wearers of the Helm and he failed all three times with Ner’zhul, Arthas and Bolvar, because the Helm’s Domination magic wasn’t his to command.

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Could you elaborate on that, and where the idea comes from? Because I really don’t know about that. Might have missed it.

…Controlling anyone would mean more soldiers. Again, I don’t see what makes the dead special. If the Primus wanted to force souls into service, that still doesn’t explain why he would actively restrict himself to the undead. And just to be sure, we’re talking theory here, not proven lore, yes?

I understand that. What I don’t understand is why, when the magic used is domination magic, and domination magic doesn’t appear to need dead subjects.

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Why would we need Anduin to tell us how to counteract Zovaal’s Domination magic if it was the same as the Primus’s? We already have the creator of Domination magic on our side, as well as Sylvanas and death knights who have been dominated by it. Yet, we turn to Anduin for answers. It could only be bad writing, but I doubt it (… two strands of Domination magic is bad writing anyway though so what do I know)

Because as twisted as they may be, the Maldraxxi and the Primus still have principles? Dominating the living would make them overstep the boundaries of Death, they’re not supposed to enslave them.

Yes, we have yet to have a confirmation of the Primus’s motivation to create Domination magic although it might have already been mentioned in an interview. I’ll post anything I find on the subject here when I do

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Because the Jailer is now better at it than him, and the Primus doesn’t know how to counteract it, I’d have thought. The mage trainer in Goldshire might be a mage. That doesn’t mean he understands how to counter Jaina’s high level magic. And that works totally without assuming that the kind of magic that Jaina uses is different from the arcane magic he uses. But since you are replying with a question I can assume that that was another theory of yours instead of something established? Ok then, I see no reason to buy into that one, yet.

But if you didn’t mean that there are different kinds of domination magic itself, and just that there are different techniques to use them with, like there would be in my mage-example, I can agree, but it doesn’t help very much.

Well, yes. If you want to analyze the magic, having something to analyze might be helpful.

They’re not supposed to enslave the dead, either. You have to invent a very special kind of moral code - which the lore untin now certainly hasn’t - to explain why the Primus would have a problem with one, but not with the other. I guess it’s not impossible, especially considering personal moral codes can include contradictions, but it is reaching quite a bit.

But let’s take it for granted at the moment. Doesn’t that run into a problem with your other point? If domination magic in itself isn’t specific to death, but the Primus made the helmet specifically to only affect the (un)dead… don’t we have to assume that he actually has a high degree of understanding of the magic, since he can deliberately exclude elements, without hampering functionality? Wouldn’t that require more understanding than just dabbling in it, not less?

Sure, I just wanted to be clear if we were talking about how it worked in lore, or if we could think of any possible explanation of how it might work under certain premises. If we’re talking about the later, we are already in agreement that there is the need for additional explanation, which is already most of my point. And the more we have to assume to get to an explanation that works, the more of an actual plot hole a lack of an official explanation would be by the end of this story.

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The mage trainer in Goldshire didn’t invent magic or the arcane, unlike the Primus who invented Domination magic. Very bad example in my opinion.

Theory based on the fact that the Primus tells us that Anduin is the only one who can help us combat Zovaal’s Domination magic. The words of a character and what they make us do doesn’t matter to you?

What’s the point of analyzing Anduin, if the Domination used by Zovaal on him is the same one the Primus invented?

I don’t see how that contradicts my other point since I never implied that the Primus didn’t know what he was doing…? He obviously understands what he created better than anyone else. What he doesn’t understand is Zovaal’s Domination magic, not his own.

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I don’t see what difference it makes. It’s about understanding of the subject matter, not origin of the subject.

The words of a character that don’t reference it being a different kind of magic don’t matter to me in determining if it might be a different kind of magic. Yes.

I feel like I already answered that.

Different techniques are not a different form of magic.

Sure, but that just means that both of your headcanon assumptions need to be true for your explanation to work, one isn’t enough. Which I find relevant in assessing the likelyhood of the explanation.

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A random user of a type of magic won’t understand it as well as its creator, seems pretty obvious to me, but you can add that to the list of things we disagree on I guess

Even when said character is the creator of the magic discussed and not just a rando? Don’t answer that, put it on the list too.

Nothing so far proves that the difference lies in the technique and not in the nature of the power used.

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It seems by no means obvious to me. You can get something to work without understanding it. And even if you understand a lot there can be layers and layers that you don’t understand. The first physician probably understood less about medicine than first year students do today, just as eary scientists didn’t understand what we understand today. No matter how clever they were.

Since I see no reason why that would make any difference… yes. And it’s really not about agreeing or disagreeing here. The question is how much of it is headcanon. And if you can’t make a better argument for it than that… I guess the answer is “all of it”.

Yup. “Nothing disproves it” is just the lowest possible standard in a lore discussion, though. It’s firmly in headcanon territory. And since my position is a sceptical one, I’m really not dependent on being right on the question of “different kinds of magic” for my points. Your explanation is wholly dependent on it, though. Just like your explanation is dependent on a certain moral view for the Primus. that hasn’t been hinted at. Those aren’t impossible asks from the writers, I guess… but not exactly well-founded ones, either. If that’s what the plot depends on, I’d say the writers could and should have done better with their setup.

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