I think the fact that both games fully show Arthas's actions at Stratholme as "difficult, but correct", is the main reason why Arthas works as a tragic villain. He was wrongly abandoned by his friends, forced to kill his own people, and have been goaded into a path of "revenge at all costs", which in turn made him play with the forces he never understood. My main issue with the story of Arthas, is his fast descend into straight evil after claiming the Frostmourne. I kinda dislike the "powerful corrupting MacGuffin" items in storytelling. I like my villains to retain full agency.
Yeah, that's a big reason why I love Illidan so much, though he's not really a total villain. He dabbled in villainy, but his mission was always in the service of saving Azeroth from the Legion. Garrosh was pretty good too. He was just a normal orc with a very puritan idea of what the Horde should be, fell into the hyper nationalism + global conquest trap, and he power tripped until we had to kill him. The Old Gods didn't make him do it. He just wanted to do it because he believed he should. Also, the Defias Brotherhood are the most based villains in the Warcraft universe.
The problem is this idea that Arthas went evil at Stratholme got so popular, it was never where he went evil. It was betraying his men in Northrend by burning their boats to return home with and then killing the mercenaries who helped him do that. And finally not listening to Muradin when he knew Frostmourne was cursed.
Never interpreted the actions as "difficult, but correct" and the story explicitly does not say that either lol. He was blinded by fervor and abandoned any other potential solutions, deciding that a city of tens of thousands needed to be systematically wiped out and refused to accept counsel from others. Post hoc justification of his actions is just that, post hoc justification. Arthas was an arrogant man and ended up being easily manipulated by Mal'Ganis. Not sure why people are saying what he did was "correct" and not simply committed. He had no way of knowing about Mal'Ganis until it was too late. Of course Uther wouldn't stand for this, it flies in the face of every lesson Uther gave him about The Light. Jaina at this point in the story is a big ass softy, there was never a chance she was going to stroll into a major city and start laying waste to civilians. Saying what he did was correct kinda ignores his agency in the story and his devolvement into a hollow shell.
@@kylegonewild It's not post-hoc, he knew the effects of this plague. He made the correct decision with the info he had. You'll notice nobody actually suggested a different path, because they also knew it was the only option. They just couldn't bear to do it. However, after purging an entire city, burning some boats and killing a few ogres seems like a small thing, despite this actually being evil.
@@clrdr7 100% correct. Stratholme was because there was nothing that could be done. In Northrend he had options, and chose the easiest path to victory. But if the new retcons from Shadowlands aren't rewritten, he still isn't really evil because he was being influence by Death Thanos. If Sylvannas gets a pass, then Arthas gets a pass at least back to Stratholme.
As someone who has been spending way too much time keeping up with WoW lore and how it has changed under Afrasiabi and Danuser it's fun watching someone try to understand all of the most recent madness in only a few minutes.
Afrasiabi is not even a writer, the older books are great because they were written by legit writers who understood how fantasy and how this universe works, Afrasiabi used to be a Quest Designer and they should have kept him at that.
At 4:30, uther isn't saying that all paladins outrank the prince I think, he's saying that him and arthas are both paladins, and Uther outranks Arthas within the paladin order.
Correct. Uther is the leader of the Silver Hand. He is THE ranking paladin, which is already a special ranking within the hierarchy. Arthas doesn't outrank him as a paladin so he couldn't force Uther to do anything, and Uther would have refused anyway. This is why he's dismissed from service instead, since the crown prince DOES outrank Uther on the whole.
Yea, that was a really odd misunderstanding on Vaush's part. It was always incredibly clear to me that Arthas in addition to being a prince was a paladin in training and what Uther meant was in the order of paladins he held a superior rank to Arthas.
In the book Arthas: Rise of the Lich King most of the events concerning Arthas in Warcraft 3 are novelized, and one of the reasons given for Arthas slowly turning to villainy is his loss of faith, after everything that has happened the Light has slowly stopped responding to Arthas because he didn't really believe in his actions, he wanted to do the right thing but wasn't convinced if it's really the right one, the Light only answers to people who believe in what they're doing no matter what their action is (that's why the Scarlet Crusade can call upon the Light while committing atrocities), so in this difficult moment not only did his mentor and friend abandon him but also his faith
That's cool but fuck Blizzard for including important story elements in secondary/tertiary media. They've also used it as a cover to change story elements retroactively (which I'd guess this is as well) when their writers either make an oopsy or decide to make a fan theory canon.
@@SomeCallMeAku Most of the books and comics are actually great, they flesh out the world and tell stories you wouldn't be able to tell well in a video game format, though I feel the quality of them dips as time goes on, as for Arthas' book, I personally enjoy it and I don't mind the changes, clarifications and addition of more info, like something people need to realize when it comes to some of the retroactive changes is that since the release of Warcraft 3 a lot more lore was made and it has to be made compatible somehow or it would have been a bigger mess than it already is, but don't take it as me accepting every change to the lore without objections, there's some changes that still piss me off to this day
This is another case of ludonarrative dissonance tho considering that throughout the campaign his Paladin powers are only getting stronger despite him "losing his connection to the Light". Like as mentioned he gets Resurrection in this very mission, so if he's having a crisis of faith he's sure being rewarded for it with more faith-powers. The funny thing is they did it in a sensible way with Deathknight Arthas who starts the campaign at full power but gets progressively weaker as the Lich King's power wanes.
And yet also in the In the novel of rise of the lich king, they literally have a scene when Arthas puts on the helm, where he sees the last bit of him from his paladin days pleading with him to repent and on the other side is the Lich king telling him to allow Nerzhul to take all control Arthas instead destroys both his old self and the lich and says he will rule but on his own, taking te blight for his own Showing that he was never a controlled puppet but a player that needed the right deck to fall into place.
@@mckenzie.latham91 Sorry, I fail to see how this related to my comment Yes, he did that as Lich King, assumed control over Ner'zhul and the last of his humanity, but I don't see how that relates to him losing his faith prior to picking up Frostmourne
Vaush, I never saw Stratholme as Arthas' "slippery slope", but the catalyst to his obsession with vengeance against Mal'ganis. He might not have done wrong there, it might not have been the start of his slippery slope, but it was the event that led to him losing his mind and thus starting the path to his slope. If Stratholme simply didn't happen, Arthas would not have been so vengeance-driven and would not have gone to Northrend unless another similar event forced his hand to make another terrible decision. Hell, if Uther and Jaina had been there with him and he didn't have to do it alone, he likely could have turned out okay after it and not gone after Mal'ganis. Traumatized, but not losing his mind and doing everything to kill Mal'ganis even if it meant selling his soul. Arthas' story wasn't "good guy do bad thing turn bad man," it was a story of a good person losing his mind from the horrors of war. He was going mad, not turning evil.
Part of the obsession was caused by his closest allies abandoning him. Uther and Jaina are incredibly powerful, they could have severely limited the amount Mal'ganis could take by assisting him and with the support of his people perhaps he wouldn't have been driven insane. They could have anchored him.
yeah arthas did the right thing in stratholme. if uther and jaina stayed with him they may have been able to prevent his obsession and drawing frostmourne, it was really all uthers fault as his mentor being stupid and abandoning his pupil
@@absenteechild8542 Uther and Jaina have the full right of not wanting to murder the same people that they wanted to protect. I can see why they did not want to participate in the Culling. Even if what Arthas was doing was right, him trying to force at least Uther into doing it as well was very authoritatian and not good "friend behavior" of his part. The authoritarian and kinda ruthless tendencies of Arthas were already exploited before in the previous chapters of the campaign. Stratholm is just were these aspects started getting on overdrive and started commanding Arthas actions. This is also reinforced by the burning of the boats and the killing of the mercenaries. In the end, Arthas history is about a man who loses sight of what he needed to protect and became consumed by his own "dark side".
@@absenteechild8542 Arthas was rejecting the idea that anything else could be done and immediately jumped to killing everybody. The fact that he didn't even consider having Uther and Jaina support him limiting the spread was the problem in the first place. You could argue that Uther and Jaina should have stayed anyway and protected the villagers from Arthas, but he went so far as disbanding the Silver Hand on the spot and throwing around an accusation of treason, implying execution for any attempts to stop him.
What I don't like looking back was how quickly Arthas gave up trying to convince Uther. It was implied so much throughout the campaign how strong their bond was but Uther was almost uncaring about the events of Hearthglen and deserved the rude remarks Arthas starts the cinematic with. Doesn't help that Arthas had so much time between the defense of Hearthglen and travel to Stratholme to discuss what he saw with Jaina and Uther. One of those stories where characters don't just talk to each other about extremely important shit. Hearthglen and Stratholme are easily my favorite campaign missions in any RTS.
It would have been interesting if Arthas made a speech about how, as future king, it would be his job to carry this burden of a task, and if anyone who could not carry that burden with him was free to go.
Uther and Arthas had a Mentor Student relationship and Uther is his superior as a Paladin so he just got really defensive that Arthas was literally giving him an order, it is said by the writer that Arthas seeing the Human Lands surrounding Lordraen falling so quickly to the Undead breaks Arthas Mentally and he becomes really Vengeful and wanted to act quickly and Uther and Arthas basically have two completely different view of this situation, Uther almost knows nothing about the plague and Arthas and Jaina are the ones that know about this so since Arthas thinks he's the Expert in this situation he tries to take over the situation, I disagree with you because Uther not wanting to murder people even if it makes sense is understandable because Paladins and their code is very strict and rigid because they always try to do the moral thing which in this case doesn't make sense but it makes sense to them, I thought Jaina leaving Arthas was way crazier than Uther leaving. also even from the Start Uther is constantly telling Arthas to have a clear head and not to rage, he suspected Arthas to be a hot-head and wanting to punish their enemies because he's very protective of his people and constantly desires vengeance over their enemies and Paladins are against Vengeance and they're all about Justice so Uther seeing Arthas like this makes him think he was always right about Arthas, all this internal conflict is what makes Arthas great because being a Righteous Paladin and a Protective Prince is going against each other while his Mentor has been suspecting him of not being mentally tough enough to have a clear head which is why Arthas is kind of rude to Uther because he knows Uther is underestimating him they also didn't have enough time to talk, that mission is limited by time. also the Menethils are very stubborn people, earlier before all that happened Medivh warned Arthas' father but he dismissed him as a crazy wizard, they were heavily losing the war at that point, so them being aggressive and chaotic makes sense.
@@Ar1AnX1x I agree with your analysis, but boy howdy, you should avoid run-on sentences. They made your post quite hard to read 😁 I always thought Jaina left because she knew she couldn't stomach to watch, not that he was wrong.
@@Nerobyrne yeah I usually try to put in as few words as possible and put spaces between different sentences and points, this one turned in to a mess. I just wanted point out a couple of things but I'm just such a Warcraft 3 nerd
Honestly, I think Arthas' slippery slope towards cillainy started before Strathlome. It began all the way back in the defense of Hearthglen. Arthas was shook by the intensity of the attack, you see him almost break when it's almost over. Being the only one who knows exactly just how great a threat the Undead are and could be, he becomes desperate to kill Mal'Ganis as quickly aa possible. The desperation and horror he feels as he conducts the purge of Stratholme take theit toll on his sanity, which eventually lead to his actions in Northrend. The purge of Stratholme was absolutely necessary, but Arthas was simply not mentally or emotionally stable enough to deal with that situation unscathed. Arthas did nothing wrong in Stratholme. He just broke under the pressure. Even if it was objectively the right choice, it broke him anyway.
You are correct imo, people tend to forget Hearthglen as an important point in the campaign, neither Jaina or Uther had to withstand what Arthas and his men did, they arrived at the last minute to save the town, they lacked the experience and context Arthas had and so his decision to purge Stratholme seemed unreasonable
It wasn't a slippery slope, it was a descent into madness. Those are two different themes, and understanding that is key to understanding Arthas' story.
Yeah thats the real tragedy. It is annoying Unther and Jena acted the way they did. Writers should have bit the bullet, that they live with it, it was the right decision, but it haunts them they couldn't do it, and helped break Arthas even more.
@@shaunsmith9013 Yeah. I can't put into words how much I hate that the future writers decided to write it like Arthas was in the wrong here because they got the horny for Sylvanas and therefore Arthas has to be Literally Hitler in everything he ever did. It's the same deal with Starcraft, the Protoss purifying Terran worlds overran by the Zerg was just Stratholme on a larger level, but because Chris Metzen got the horny for Kerrigan and she hates Protoss suddenly it became the Zerg aren't as bad as we originally said and the Protoss are wrong? Like there are literally missions of Kerrigan committing outright genocide on Protoss colonists and the games still made her the savior of the universe while the Protoss were wrong in everything they ever did and could only make it right by mutilating themselves and removing a huge part of their species' entire identity.
"Hush, Uther, are you tone policing me? That is so gauche. I am going to report this micro-aggression to my father: the King. And no, I am not mad, I just have resting prince face."
I always took the scene as supposed to be a sketchy moment, he shows no hesitation that a normal, compassionate person would have. A person who is a little too eager to push the fat man in front of the trolley to save the people is a red flag Plus, it's also probably extremely traumatizing There's an overlap with the trolley problem, the question of something evil explicitly done to prevent something worse, sometimes it gets brought up in psychology contexts to discuss the dissonance between moral systems and what one is comfortable with doing
His hesitation came after, which it kind of had to. The culling of Stratholme and the condemnation he received by Uther and Jaina definitely contributed to the internal conflict that led to him taking Frostmourne and becoming the Lich King. Uther and Jaina could have potentially prevented him from turning, stopping one of the greatest conflicts of WoW in its tracks.
@@absenteechild8542 The problem was his attitude. He tried to force Uther by using his position callously instead of sharing with Uther what he knew. THEN he called Uther a traitor for refusing to kill people in cold blood, needed as it might have been. He should have called for volunteers to join him in making the hard decision, or joined with uther and the paladins to quarantine the city and kill the people after they had turned to the undead. The issue was his attitude and heart, not the actions he was taking. Just listen how he speaks to Uther the entire time, he was already slipping into a narcisistic savior complex.
@@Bl4ckDr4co its funny that people even after covid still think that putting a giant city (dont forget stratholme is the second biggest city in lordaeron, second only to the capital itself) under quarantine is actually something you can do, especially since we knew at that point that the transformation happens within hours of eating the stuff. Plus in the book at least its rather obvious that if the entire city where to turn, that army wouldve overrun arthas/uthers troops and basically overrun lordaeron as a whole, and that was before they even knew that there was a dreadlord involved who could lead the army. There simply was no time to explain anything, i mean by the time arthas started purging, people where already turning. So even with all the knowledge we have as viewers/players and ingame knowledge decades after the purging, it was still the only option that saved lordaeron as a whole. For me personally arthas did never anything wrong until he went to northrend, everything on northrend, including the decision to go there in the first place, was just a bad idea, but at that point the 2 most important people in his life have already abandoned him and someone forced him to kill his own people, so from a psychological point it makes sense that he blinded by vengeance. I mean in the book even jaina basically agrees that purging the city is the only choice, and she would rather die than turn into a monster that kills their loved ones, she left because she "couldnt do this" not because its the wrong choice, and uther didnt even take the situation seriously enough (pretty much like lordaeron and the kirin tor as a whole didnt take the scourge seriously enough until it was too late). Nothing about arthas was narcisistic (at least not at that point) he hated himself for having to do this (which they sadly completely gloss over in the game), but as a prince he was quite literally the only one there with the authority to even give such a command, and refusing to follow a direct order from your prince (unless the king says something else) is by definition treason, could he have said that a little nicer? sure, was there time for formalities in this situation? not really. Which is really a way too long way of saying: if you only played the game i totally get your point, but if you read the book, its clear that arthas made the decision that would've saved the most lives, or really any lives at all.
@@nirodi3012 excuse me... then HOW THE FUCK did Arthas even manage to cull that entire Gigantic City? if you're going to exaggerate the size of Stratholme, then the How the culling could even be possible in this scenario is very important now, because this is a very big wrench you just threw into the story and now there's no way Arthas had anywhere near the force required to slaughter them all, even while they were still among the living.. The city was big, but it was big relative to a Medieval city/setting, where as today in our world, the smallest villages are comparable in size to some of the big cities of medieval times. How is it possible for Arthas to cull a massive city, but not possible for him, Jaina, Uther, all their forces combined, to allow an escape route for even however few survivors they could've saved in this whole horrible ordeal? I'm not saying they could saved the WHOLE ENTIRE city, or even half of it for that matter, but saving any number of people that could've been saved would've been the best choice in this situation, where as what he chose was to slaughter, literally, everyone in the city, without even investigating the severity of the situation or checking for infection on the individuals, or anything.
@@itzi7868 I didnt exaggerate anything, its stated in the books that stratholme is the second biggest city in lordaeron(that still doesnt mean its on the scale of a modern day city, i thought that obvious). And it obviously took much longer than the 30mins it took back in wc3. Not to mention that arthas still had a decent chunk of his army with him. And i dont think i have to explain to you that even a relatively small army of trained soldiers can easily kill a huge amount of untrained (and for the most part unarmed) civilians in a short amount of time.
I don't think it was the wrong choice, I think Arthas' failure in this moment was how he drove away his friends like an evil autocrat rather than find away to achieve the same goal while keeping his allies. He jumped to a conclusion and drove away his comrades when they didn't instantly fall in line. Just because it happened to be the correct conclusion doesn't fix his broken relationships.
This is basically it. Arthas was right, or as right as could be reasonably reached with the information available at the time. The people couldn't be saved and to prevent the situation from getting worse needed to be culled. Amputated like an hand infected with flesh eating disease to save the rest of the body. Arthas was also a complete asshole who barely attempted to explain why this was needed and why nothing else could be done. And worse when people balked at the treatment because it was horrific rather than leaving them be and carrying on with what had to be done he punished them and drove them off.
So, we're trusting the game is representing the facts of the story objectively. If this mission actually portrayed the purge as perceived by Arthas and his followers, then the civilians would all be "infected". It would cool if there were a cut-scene from Jaina or Uther's perspective, where some civilians don't turn into zombies. That would cast doubt on Arthas assumption.
There actually kind of is, later on you see jaina and uther burning the bodies of the people of stratholme with the help of some civilians, presumably the people that werent infected and survived the purge
Pretty sure Arthas saved Azeroth or the Alliance by purging the city, Stratholme was a huge problem, imagine if they just had ignored them, the power the scourage would have had, the only reason the Undead were so strong and able to stomp The Blood Elves was because of Loerdaron being turned into zombies, if not, the Undead would not have become a so strong. Also I think Uther knows he is still under the service of Arthas as his prince, but he is still a higher rank as a Paladin, he is treating him as a fellow Paladin not royalty
Because of the destruction of Stratholme, the land around it and the city itself become completely consumed by the undead. There is no saving Stratholme, there is no way for it to not be undead. Arthas may have done the right thing within the moment, but the consequences latter on blighted the land and turned the entire region that Stratholme is into the hands of the undead for probably all time. That's the thing with doing the right thing within the moment, sometimes the consequences will never agree with you regardless of your justification. Had Arthas not done what he did, the land would not have been blighted, the city might have been saved and Blood Elves would not exist. You've got the entire thing backwards. His burning and destruction of Stratholme literally bolstered the forces of the Undead in such a way that made it possible for him to call on as many legions of undead as he did. You literally lead the forces of undead from Stratholme to the land of the High Elves.
I think the hierarchy is such that the title of Prince only means "going to be king one day but for know this means literally nothing else". The prince has very little authority, if any at all. Any respect given to the title is a choice not an obligation. I could be wrong tho thats just the general vibe I got.
@@voiceofreason467 no. You're right. Arthas doing the while purge was the reason he chased after Malganis. It was is slipper slope. I think had he not chosen to go further in his goals, he could have been saved.
@@absenteechild8542 That's true, there were certain princes in Europe that the people never respected until they were King and even then they only did it out of fear of execution, never out of respect.
The Stratholme episode of WC3 was lackluster writing. Had they set up an alternative means of saving Stratholme citizens, like a new treatment to reverse the plague but it's uncertain and inefficient, and have Arthas forgo the riskier but more compassionate treatment in favor of a scorched earth campaign, then the moral slippery slope would have made a lot more sense.
Agree, while in concept the chapter is awesome (especially gameplay wise) when it comes to the actual writing behind it could have definitely been executed quite a bit better, like I really loved your idea of the potential but unreliable cure, something akin to that would had still kept some of that grey morality and "dificult choice" aspect they were going for, while still clearly conveying Arthas was definitely going kinda insane and crossing a terrible threshold. Had they done something like that we wouldn't have people going "ActUaLLy ArThAs DiD NoThInG WrONg" lmao
I think I'd like to see more of Vaush doing Warcraft stuff. He knows his lore and I personally enjoy when both my favourite streamer and long time favourite game cross over
Uther: "Glad I could make it Arthas" Arthas: "I watch my tone with you, Oldman, I may be the Prince but you're still my Superior as a Paladin." Uther: "as if you could forget, Listen Arthas, there's something about the Plague I should know." Uther: "Oh no, We're too late, these people have all been infected, they may look fine now but it's only a matter of time before they turn in to the undead." Arthas: "WHAT?!" Uther: "This ENTIRE CITY must be purged" Arthas: "how can I even consider that? there's got to be some other way." Uther: "DAMN IT ARTHAS, as my future king, Order me to purge this city." Arthas: "I'm not your king yet, Oldman, Nor should you Obey that command even if I were." Uther: "then you must consider this an act of treason." Arthas: "TREASON?! Have I lost my mind Uther?" Uther: "Have you? Prince Arthas, by your right of succession and sovereignty of your crown, you hereby relieve me of my command and suspend my Paladins from service." Jaina: "Uther...he can't jus-" Uther: "ITS DONE, those of you who have the will to save this land, follow him, the rest of you, get out of his sight." Arthas: "I've just crossed terrible threshold, Uther." Jaina: "Arthas?..." Arthas: "I'm sorry Jaina, you can't watch me do this."
This is why I love the old storytelling in blizzard. It was simple but so well told. The thing is Arthas was RIGHT! Everyone in the town had to be purged but slaughtering his own people mentally broke Arthas in a way he could never recover from. I think that was the point. mal'ganis did this to Stratholme because he knew what it would do to Arthas
He is correct but as uther says it's the threshold for crossing the line and this is the start to him turning evil. If he stopped here and exampled why this was needed to be done because he was the only one the dreadlords told what the plague was but he keeps going
People out here calling this a trolley problem are stupid, who's life are you saving if you don't kill the infected townsfolk? They're already dead, killing Mal'Ganis won't save them. It's like a zombie bite, they're infected and within hours they start turning into zombies, so you mercy kill them before they become a zombie.
Steve Danuser really did Arthas dirty with how his role in Warcraft has ended recently. Now... all there is left of him is a flickering ball of blue light that is literally only worth 35 anima. Arthas is one of Warcraft's most iconic characters, and this debate as to whether his actions in Stratholme were right or wrong that still continues to this day is testament to that. Now he's literally been wiped completely from existence in an unceremonious manner while Sylvanas gets to monologue about what a naughty boy he was. As to where I stand on the Stratholme question... yes, Arthas did nothing wrong. His choice there was either kill those people before they become zombies or to have to kill them anyway after they become zombies. That said, this is the beginning of his downfall. His faith in The Light is shaken by Uther's refusal to go along with this plan, and seeing Jaina Proudmoore turn her back on him. But another thing about being able to wield The Light is that you don't necessarily have to be a good person to wield it. You just have to BELIEVE you're a good person... The Scarlet Crusade are a prime example of evil people who can use The Light. They believe their cause is righteous, that they are going to Make Lordaeron Great Again... and yet they torture and murder anyone who opposes them and are human supremacists... also, their leader is a Dreadlord. Also, in Burning Crusade, the Blood Elves found another way of tapping into The Light... by siphoning it from a Naaru that Kael'thas Sunstrider captured from Tempest Keep and sent back to Silvermoon... though they don't do that anymore and draw upon The Light no different to anyone else at this point.
Except Arthas showed many times before Stratholme that he had no issue with bloody massacre or bloodlust which often alarmed the people around him for how quick he was to use brutality as a solution when a Paladin is supposed to be above such vitriol responses Again Arthas’s first response to the plague infecting the city was to order everyone (even those who may not have been infected, or who could still survive) to be mass slaughtered, ignoring Uther and Jaina’s concerns and council and even using his position as prince/future king to try and force their obedience… and this wasn’t the first time he showed frustration at having to be reigned in by others. The problem that to me shows that it was wrong and that Arthas’s true nature got revealed the more he felt he was justified in not having to hide it, is that Arthas showed no hesitancy or remorse or even guilt, even if it was the right action, at least Uther, Jaina and others had the right level of horror at the concept, arthas didn't there is also a cutscene AFTER the purge that shows uninfected citizens trying to escape through the carnage as well as helping Jaina and Uther burn the bodies, and it's this cutscene that shows that there were uninflected people who survived the ordeal, and were caught up in the purge and thus there were innocent people that could have been saved, but due to the kill em all and let the gods sort them out mentality Arthas had adopted, many probably died as well. so actually Arthas was wrong, furthermore destroying the city only permanently delivers the land into the hands of the blight and undead, the blight taking hold from all the blood and destruction. And arthas even then shows how little he cares baout his people and more his own selfish desires and pride, by refusing to go after the burning legion at Calamdore and instead purses Mal'gannis who he has a personal prideful feud with, leaving Jaina to take and lead the survivors to safety at Calmadore while he ignores confronting the actual threat, the burning legion itself which he was literally advised to do along with Terranis.
@@mckenzie.latham91 'many times' before Stratholme he had no issue with 'bloody massacres'? What the hell are you talking about? Stratholme was his first.
@@HouseOfAlastrian During the campaign against the orcs Uther has to literally scold Arthas for taking vengeance’s/hatreds path (against the paladin way) when Arthas comments on how they should exterminate the entire orc force like animals
As Asmongold said, Arthas made the decision only a king and a ruler could make. I agree he made the correct call on this instance, but part of what makes it so interesting is the discussion it provokes. Some takes makes more sense than others though.
4:06 I can explain, you see Uther is part of the Order of the Knights the Silver Hand, an order of Paladins from the many Kingdoms of Azeroth, they are like an international organization, Arthas is the prince of Lordaeron but also a member of the Silver Hand, as a senior member of the Order Uther out rank Arthas, but as a citizen of Lordaeron Arthas out ranks him
18:00 They should have just said that resurrection is a backdoor to death and the gods of the afterlife or whatever don't notice when a random level 13 druid gets resurrected but when it's the warchief or anyone of historical significance they make sure they stay dead. And then you can have more powerful resurrection spells that work on bigger characters etc
Or that more powerful souls require more elaborate rituals, more powerful spells, and that the most basic spells only work for a few moments after death.
I love how in the start of this he's hyped up by Warcraft 3 Lore and then he's confused and bored by the current World of Warcraft Lore, that's literally how it is.
The part that people are missing in the equation is the danger of the plague. We already have quarantine protocols irl for diseases that are much much less dangerous than the plague of undeath. This is a disease that not only kills you quickly, not only spreads, but after you die turns you into a malicious vector that has no desire other than to spread the plague and kill. We have nothing in the real world that is that dangerous. The best Arthas could theoretically do would be set up a quarantine zone where civilians could go, under soldier supervision, in chains, and if any of them turn they get kills instantly. But even then, this is assuming he has the time and men to set this up, along with it ignoring the fact mal'ganis was there, actively speeding up the spread and process. This was always a losing situation, and bloodshed was unavoidable. Inaction results in the entire town dying anyway, and being turned into a mindless slave army that can further spread the plague. My hypothetical comes with a huge risk, that if it goes wrong results in Arthas and his army being wiped out along with the town. And given the time pressures it would likely go wrong. If any of the factors were loosened. If the plague was less dangerous. If he had more time. If Mal'ganis wasn't actively there, then maybe a better solution could be found. But given the set up, no, he did make the most pragmatic choice. He wasn't wrong.
The problem is, Arthas actions, blighted the land delivering it forever into the hands of the undead and was used to bolster his forces as he ended up marching on the High Elves land. If Arthas hadn't done it, the entire region could have been saved while the city itself could have been lost. This you'd have a city walled off magically like an undead prison, but no way for the blight to reach the rest of the region and infect everything. What Arthas did in the moment might have been right, but the consequences don't care about whether you're in the right or not in the moment.
@@voiceofreason467 But we're talking about narrative consequences here, and this is shown as the tipping point for his moral decline. The way characters and the story react, it's meant to be his decision is wrong through and through. The moral compass characters disagree and leave (without offering any other solution no less), and condemn his actions. What we are presented with doesn't justify the narrative repercussions. It sucks as it wouldn't take much tweaking to make this moment work perfectly. You can have Uther leave, saying that while it's the right choice, he simply cannot bring himself to kill his countrymen. He leaves in what he sees as shame, and Jaina stands by Arthas, knowing this is a painful choice. The purge happens the same, and it breaks Arthas. Now he becomes hellbent on revenge, like he does anyway, and ends up pushing those away from him due to his actions after the fact. Maybe a faction of his men lose faith in him as they had to kill their own kin. Maybe other nobles call him a butcher for his actions, not knowing the stakes. All these pressures building up on him. It would still be that the purge was the tipping point in his story, the thing that sends him down a dark path. But not because he made the morally wrong choice and no-one offered a different solution, but just that he had an all too human reaction to such a difficult thing to do.
@@Crawver Well, you guy's deal with the narrative of the characters, I'm dealing with the consequences of the world itself and how certain actions lead to another and ask the question, "What could have been done differently?" But we should also remember that the Blight is magical in nature, thus it can likely be countered by magic at the very least (we know now it can be stopped from spreading further through magical wards and by keeping the disease from spreading and roaming free). I mean the narrative stuff involving characters and justifying is all well and good, but those topics have been done to death at this point so I turn my particular issue with what Vaush says as basically pointing out the narrative consequences of the world itself responds to his actions and hardly anyone is willing to talk about that aspect of everything.
@@voiceofreason467 It's all make belief magic bs. Zombies aren't real, magic isn't real, and everything we saw was being made up as it went along. None of the mechanical consequences had to be written as they were. The plague of undeath was pretty new to the series, so it didn't even need to have any conflicting lore or consequences. So gesturing at the mechanical outcomes as justification for what ends up being a really flimsy story moment in a story is putting the cart before the horse. Again, so little needed to be altered to actually have this moment have real bite. But just deferring to lore rules that were new at the time as justification as to why it couldn't be better, when that lore is just as much part of the writing as the narrative is really weird.
@@Crawver Thx for informing me that fantasy is not real... and thank you very much for also informing me that you can't extrapolate certain thing's from this. The thing that ultimately makes me think of this as a point against consequentialism is the Rwandan Genocide. Because in a way it has a similar sort of setting, trying to right a wrong that was done by educating a population out of that mindset only for those people to then go on a genocide slaughter spree, all with the greatest of intentions. While not a perfect analogy, the attempt to right that wrong was a good thing but the consequences speak for themselves. This is the reason why I find this particular issue of "its fantasy bro, don't take it so seriously because none of the mechanical consequences are like this" without realizing that the mechanical consequences are about how we often cannot predict fully to any satisfying degree of what will actually happen or how it will backfire. Sometimes its best just to do nothing at than do the right thing, because the consequences of doing the right thing in the moment will eventually yield monstrous results regardless of your actions or intent to make it so certain consequences happen over others. That is what I'm extrapolating from this, you are extrapolating character consistency and ethical character integrity. Clearly we're taking this into different directions, but I'd appreciate not ignoring my points just to argue in favor of yours when mine deals with a greater contextual element of how the world reacts as opposed to how characters act and feel justified and whether their feeling is justified. I figured you';d be interested in talking about the merits, but I guess not, you want self masturbatory sentiments and say "they were right" without exploring the fundamentals of the world reacting the way they are. That's fine, but don't say my particular interpretation and mode of discussion isn't worth having, its kind of disrespectful. I honestly don't find any reason to engage in a side of this topic that has basically been beaten to death at this point, but thats my particular issue with your points.
Here's how they could have made the story actually morally ambivalent: Before he dies Kel'thuzad says something about the people of Stratholme joining the Scourge soon enough. So Arthas travels there, demands Uther and his forces assist him in purging the city, which they obviously refuse since its obviously a trick by Kel'thuzad, and many of Arthas' own men abandon him as well. Arthas sees to the city being purged anyway, all the while never actually encountering any undead. And shortly after it is done, the deliveries of plagued grain arrive.
I like the actual Stratholme storyline but yours is also nice. Although I don't think it would be just "morally ambivalent" in that case, it would just be genocide with a "whoopsie" in the end haha.
Literally wouldn't make sense for Arthas to do that, and even less sense for him to after that fiasco, go on the journey that led him to Frost Mourne, and becoming the Lich King.
Heh. I remember when Nathanos had a generic Forsaken model with his two big ass Hyenas. Just chillin out in the Plaguelands with his hidden raid boss stats
I think his psyche slipped here tho, if anything the fault is on the shoulder of Uther and Jaina. He actually made a tough moral choice and was abandoned by his closest allies, making an already severe problem even worse.
Arthas blighted the land forever delivering the region into the hands of the Undead forces. He was wrong, the consequences show this. Wtf is wrong with people where they're willing to ignore the literal consequences of fictional characters actions all because they can't be bothered to look at the moral calculus that was made by the narrative after the fact?
Except Arthas showed many times before Stratholme that he had no issue with bloody massacre or bloodlust which often alarmed the people around him for how quick he was to use brutality as a solution when a Paladin is supposed to be above such vitriol responses Again Arthas’s first response to the plague infecting the city was to order everyone (even those who may not have been infected, or who could still survive) to be mass slaughtered, ingoing council and even using his position as prince to try and force obedience… and this wasn’t the first time he showed frustration at having to be reigned in by others. there is also a cutscene AFTER the purge that shows uninfected citizens trying to escape through the carnage. this cutscene shows that there were uninflected people who survived the ordeal, thus there were innocent people that could have been saved, but due to the kill em all and let the gods sort them out mentality Arthas had adopted, they died as well. so actually Arthas was wrong, furthermore as pointed out destroying the city only permanently delivers the land into the hands of the blight and undead, the blight taking hold from all the blood and destruction furthermore i would argue that Arthas did not care about his people, he simply wanted to protect the kingdom he would inherit showing a willingness to abandon his own men to their deaths, to sacrifice others, and as mentioned before be quick to violate paladin ways with brutality and violence as a go to solution first. The biggest sign that Arthas cared less about his people and more about the kingdom he thought was rightfully his to be his domain (and thus didn’t like other forces taking it from him) is when he refused alongside Terranis to take their survivors and people/armies to Calamdore to fight the burning the legion itself, who was behind Mal’Gannis and everything that had befallen them. Instead Arthas and Terranis refuse out of pride, and it’s Jaina who takes the survivors there and is the one actually trying to save/thinking of the people. Arthas was a spoiled, arrogant, bloodthirsty brat and willfully chose his path and actions despite circumstances being manipulated by others, he didn’t care about the decisions being right or wrong and seemed to more and more reveal his true nature as he grew more powerful and believed he didn’t need to fear consequences anymore.
This scene isn't pivotal for what Arthas does. It is pivotal because Jaina and Uther both leave Arthas by himself at this point, leaving him only caused him to fall deeper and deeper into his madness. I found that Arthas burning his own ships using troll and ogre mercenaries in Northrend to be a moustache twirling villain moment. I gasped when I learned that that is what Hernando Cortez did when he was fighting against the Aztec empire. What a truly evil man.
I think I recall somewhere from another WoW youtuber that the plague is literally uncurable? There was a whole WoW questline about this one person getting infected and eventually succumbing to the disease and it took like the magic of dragons to even just prevent him from coming back as undead
The canonicity of that quest might be suspect since it was meant to be an allegory for a Blizzard Executive’s brother dying of cancer. I thought it was Metzen’s brother but I’m not certain on that
The thing is, you get a cutscene for after the purge is done with Jaina walking through the slaughtered city. In it you can see random citizens collecting the bodies and mourning the dead. This suggests that some survived the purge (they might have hidden or something) and did not in fact turn into the undead afterwards, meaing Arthas probably purged a lot of uninfected as well and the whole "every house has zombies in it" was just a gameplay convention for the mission and shouldn't be taken story-literally. Arthas might have still been right, but it's not quite as cut-and-dry.
I think it's genius story telling. The reason it works is because he's correct in doing this, but it's still a really heinous act. By doing it, he realizes in the worst of ways just how horrifying the Legion is, and will now stop at nothing to defeat them.
Except he doesn’t The biggest sign that Arthas cared less about his people and more about the kingdom he thought was rightfully his to be his domain (and thus didn’t like other forces taking it from him) is when he refused alongside Terranis to take their survivors and people/armies to Calamdore to fight the burning the legion itself, who was behind Mal’Gannis and everything that had befallen them. Instead Arthas and Terranis refuse out of pride, and it’s Jaina who takes the survivors there and is the one actually trying to save/thinking of the people.
Here what I never understood how does Arthas being the one who slaughters the people of Startholme prevent Mal'ganis or anyone else from raising them as zombies? Even by his own twisted logic Arthas failed to "save his people" the culling of Stratholme only makes sense as a narrative display of the creeping insanity and stubbornness that would eventually lead Arthas to ruin otherwise it serves no purpose
@@verager2493 Eh I don't know Vaush brought up why the tactics that were so successful in Stratholme wnot repeated anywhere else and I feel like that's because Stratholme was more about getting Arthas to crack rather then merely the simple goal of growing the undead army
The culling also literally blights the land forever, turning it into a permanent holding for the undead. Even after the destruction of major bosses in Stratholme, the place is still blighted and still roaming with undead. Arthas didn't save Stratholme, he delivered it forever into the hands of the undead. So even consequentially, Arthas is wrong, despite right in the moment.
@@MrElionor I feel it's more because writing is a distant 5th in the priorities of the Warcraft property. And it's possible this was organized, at least in part, to mess up Arthas, because this sort of thing fucks a dude up. Doesn't change that it was necessary
@@voiceofreason467 Shifting writers notwithstanding, there are objectively fewer undead in Stratholme than there would be if Arthas had not killed a bunch of them. If anything this is a confirmation that if Uther and/or Jaina had helped, Stratholme would not have been "saved" per se, but the undead war machine would be greatly diminished, and Arthas may have not gone insane from having all of his closest friends abandon him
@@heyy1829 it sux it bombed cuz it was a movie made for fans of the brand. And it just didn't sell. I thought it was a decent movie that kept the lore on point. Imagine if the resident evil guy made this xD
They didn't infect more grain because it could only work once, as a sneak attack, and they had to actually infect all the grain. So they had to control the distribution area for long enough to perform the ritual, while also staying undetected by the wider Alliance forces so that it actually gets shipped where it needs to go.
I feel like there's a misinterpretation from people who follow Warcraft Lore (as convoluted as it has become, who can blame anyone. I've all but given up after Legion with the constant rewriting), in thinking that the Culling of Stratholme was his 'turning point' it was *A* turning point. But it wasn't *THE* turning point. Had Uther or Jaina (preferably both) remained with him, there was probably a small chance that he would have lead his foolish expedition into Northrend to chase Mal'ganis. Was what he did to the City what someone could argue as Evil? Possibly, you could TRY and frame it as being Lawful Evil - doing something wrong in the pursuit of ones goals or internal code. But I think that'd be flawed. Hell, the flashback dungeon in WoW and the couple of missions leading up to Stratholme prime the players to understand that the tainted grain is basically a guaranteed death sentence for those that eat it. And when they die shortly after eating it, they come back to 'life' as the mindless undead. If you *really* want to look towards his true downfall, look at him burning his ships to keep his men trapped in Northrend with him and then blaming it on the 'monsters' (Aka, the neutral goblin, ogre, and troll mercenaries that had been helping you up to that point). In those last days/weeks where he was truly capable of *real* evil in service of getting his revenge on Mal'ganis. If the Culling had gone any other way, you might have been looking at someone who would likely not have been praised, but at least understood and respected for being a Ruler who was willing to take on such a uniquely horrifying burden onto themselves in service of their kingdom and their people. But instead, with the abandonment of some of his closest friends and the goading of a master deceiver, one of the greatest tragic heroes-turned-villains in Warcraft was born. Wrath of the Lich King was regarded as the last "Great" expansion by many people, and it's hard not to see why -- even if I personally consider Mists of Pandaria my favorite; the level of talent that went into Orcs & Humans and what eventually turned into Warcraft 2, 3, Vanilla, TBC, and WotLK lead to such an epic and cathartic expansion that even Legion; which saw us finally seeing and 'dealing' with Sargares didn't even come close to scratching the same itch. And this is coming from someone that loves Illidan, Demon Hunters, and all the Bizarre Warhammer Space/Warp/Chaos stuff that WoW ripped off probably to an irrational degree.
The problem was that Arthas showed no hesitancy or remorse or even guilt, even if it was the right action, at least Uther, Jaina and others had the right level of horror at the concept, arthas didn't which to me shows that Arthas was long a blood thirsty warmonger who was more concerned with preserving his future kingdom for himself then about others and or right and wrong. His obsession with Mal’gannis was a personal feud of pride which he put his habove the safety and future of his people, since Arthas actually refused the advice to take the survivors and armies to Calamdore and fight the Burning Legion itself, instead he refuses out of Pride and its Jaina who takes them there, while Arthas goes after Mal’Gannis instead of the whole burning legion becasue Mal’Gannis has irked/pissed him off and his pride won’t let him leave it until he’s killed him.
Lorderan fell anyway. Arthas slaughtered untold innocents for nothing. In fact his actions here is largely the reason he started his journey to become the lich king, is victory by any means necessary really victory? Would he have he pursued Frostmoune had he not taken this step?
The thing is Vaush, it's not that he did anything wrong per se, but it's an indication of his overall mentality. He's always extremely quick to resort to mass murder and violence as a solution to problems and Uther chides him for it in the second mission of the game where he's like "Yeh let's like murder all the orc vermin for glory" and Uther is like "That's really not paladin like" and begins to give a shpeel about the mentality one needs and Arthas just goes "Yeh whatever". He does this constantly. So then we get to Stratholme and Mr Murder is like "Yeah let's just kill everyone" and by this point Uther has had enough of his shit and loses it on him because now he's saying it about his own people too. Uther might be wrong in the specific instance, but you can totally see why he reacts the way he does. Imagine it's a straight up zombie movie and before the apocalypse even happens you've got some kill crazy nutjob hanging around constantly suggesting murder as a solution to problems like the starbucks guy getting your order wrong and you have to physically restrain him from decapitating service workers on the regular. It really colors things when they're the person to suggest we murder the bitten folk before we even know precisely how many are bit or exactly how the infection works or if there's a cure and so on. It becomes almost impossible to take them seriously and by that point they've done it so often you've developed new wrinkles in your brain to handle the input of telling them to shut the fuck up and calm down. That they're right in the specific instance is besides the point that it's a suggestion and plan that someone *else* has to suggest and that they need to reach that conclusion themselves because they know Murdery McMurderface is saying it because they're a psycho who hasn't even done the utilitarian calculus properly. And the characters don't get a chance to reach the conclusion themselves because Arthas throws a hissy fit and pulls rank on them and dismisses them before they can get into the city and see for themselves that he's right. Arthas is also assured and confident in his decision and has no remorse for it, even in terms of "Well it sucked but it was necessary.". He just gets angry at Malganis for it and it's always in terms of "You took my subjects from me" rather than "You killed people". He was always a psycho, it's just that the game places him in situations where it obscures that from the player in various ways until it very suddenly doesn't. But by that point "Oh it's the Lich King doing it.". Except it isn't. He isn't being mind controlled. This is explicit in side universe content. Like, he's written as a legitimately psychopathic person until the dumbshit shadowlands stuff. He even keeps a serial killer momento chest with Sylvanas' blood in it, alongside stuff from other people he's ruined the lives of.
There were really only two options at Stratholme. A) the route Arthas took, or B) get reinforcements and prepare to hold back the flood of undead that would have soon emerged from the city (Stratholme had about 25 000 inhabitants at the time and most of them would have turned before measures could have been taken to sort out and save any non-infected citizens). So yeah, either massacre innocents since there was no way to tell who was infected or not, or risk legions of undead being unleashed upon Lordaeron (and trap any non-infected citizens inside the city with the undead)
Art has was right about Stratholme. He was wrong to throw Uther under the bus for recoiling at the horror of the purge. Instead of ordering Uther to purge the city, he should have respected his mentor and explained as they headed into the city. As the people start to turn, Uther would have seen the necessity to Arthas’ plan and would have backed it. But Arthas got a big head and tried to leverage a crisis to cement his power in Lordaeron. That was what Arthas messed up, and that was what tipped him down a darker path. He was right about Strarholme. He was wrong about Uther and Jaina.
The shit Arthas did to Sylvanas was enough to earn a place in warcraft’s Super Hell (Tm), let alone the things he did to the people closest to him in life.
and furthermore none of those actions against her could be blamed on the Lich or the Jailer the lich and the Jailer are not interested in tormenting people unless it serves a purpose, the lich is indiscriminate and apathetic to personal feud, simply using the plague to create more undead legions for it to lead and the jailer doesn't care about individuals and or personal vendetta as long as his over-arching goal/master plan unfolds therefore there was no reason that either of them would have “Influenced” Arthas to do what he did to Sylvannis “After all the trouble you put me through woman, the last thing i will give you is the peace of death” Arthas didn’t just steal Sylvannis’s soul with frostmourne, he didn’t just raise her into the undead/banshee, he made sure she had her mental faculties and mind intact, something that was not usual for the undead at the time (before the fallen) and something that neither the lich nor the jailer would care about, they just want dead fodder to help them and their plans. Arthas chose to allow Sylvannis her mind, so that he could force her to watch him destroy the rest of her people, and then he kept her locked in a coffin and tortured her and took his frustrations and sadism out on her simply because she caused him such distress that cannot be put on the Lich or the Jailer, that was Arthas and his true nature revealed.
@@mckenzie.latham91You are 100 percent wrong about that. Arthas was gone when he took up Frosmourne. It was Nerzhul(The Jailer) who controls him. And Yes the elves serve the Jailer's purpose to revive Kelthuzad.
@kendivedmakarig215 What I stated was not only going by the official novelization of Wrath of the Lich King But also directly from the mouth of the story director at the time who literally said as much in an interview, that Arthas was never controlled and that the reason is they felt it would weaken his character if all he had done was someone else's choice and not his Then he is no longer a tragic character but a punk.
Warcraft 3 did a Darth Vader prequel better than the Star Wars ones. Arthas was totally right. However, his arrogance was still being manipulated. The dread lord's goal was to divide the kingdom and also set Arthas down a path of the cold murderous leader he becomes. What better way to do that than to force his hand to kill the subjects he's sworn to protect that also causes a schism between him and Uther. Uther's arrogance is also being exploited, in that he thinks that the paladins can just fix everything without any hard choices or terrible sacrifice.
Except Arthas showed many times before Stratholme that he had no issue with bloody massacre or bloodlust which often alarmed the people around him for how quick he was to use brutality as a solution when a Paladin is supposed to be above such vitriol responses Again Arthas’s first response to the plague infecting the city was to order everyone (even those who may not have been infected, or who could still survive) to be mass slaughtered, ignoring Uther and Jaina’s concerns and council and even using his position as prince to try and force obedience… and this wasn’t the first time he showed frustration at having to be reigned in by others. The problem was that Arthas showed no hesitancy or remorse or even guilt, even if it was the right action, at least Uther, Jaina and others had the right level of horror at the concept, arthas didn't the only sign that he was broken or hurt by it comes from books/novelizations and or writer retcon after the fact, in the game and cutscenes he shows no issue and problem with his decision, Again while the circumstances are being manipulated, it’s the characters who choose to make their own actions and decisions furthermore i would argue that Arthas did not care about his people, he simply wanted to protect the kingdom he would inherit The biggest sign that Arthas cared less about his people and more about the kingdom he thought has rightfully his to be his domain (and thus didn’t like other forces taking it from him) is when he refused alongside Terranis to take their survivors and people/armies to Calamdore to fight the burning the legion itself, who was behind Mal’Gannis and everything that had befallen them. Instead Arthas and Terranis refuse out of pride, and it’s Jaina who takes the survivors there and is the one actually trying to save/thinking of the people. Rather than face the entire burning legion, Arthas goes after Mal’Gannis becasue of pride, because it’s Mal’ganns whose hurt his pride he picked up Frostmourne not for his people but for power, becasue he knew he could use it to kill mal’gannis, which was his main goal/desire.
"the Culling of Stratholme" is a bit different, lore wise. The Infinite Dragonflight are trying to meddle with the timeline and completely alter the course of the future by killing Arthas and stopping him from culling Stratholme. Their reasoning is, if he never called Stratholme, he would've never progressed to Icecrown in his thirst for revenge for Mal'Ganis, and become the lich king. Your goal as a party was to stop the infinite Dragonflight and help Arthas, in the past, survive to the present.
i think the point of it wasnt that he was morally wrong the point was that the way in which he responded to the situation emotionally. Instead of feeling deep regret for all the lives lost even though there was nothing anyone could have done he is consumed by his revenge he turned cold on the inside in that moment even if it was necessary he did turn off all his empathy with the problem being he never turned it back on again
It's like people who get blasted by radioactivity. They are going to die, just depends on if they die while still feeling okay, or days or weeks of excruciating misery.
uther didn't say he outranked the crowned prince, he said he outranks him as a paladin, which they both are. that's the entire reason he can dismiss arthur and uther just goes along with it. It's like of a prince is in the army as a captain, and he argues with a general. the general has rights over the prince since he's of a higher rank, but the captain has certain powers over the general as a prince.
Genuinely love this game, I’ve been playing it for 10+ years and I taught myself how to play it when I didn’t even know English, glad Vaush is talking about it it has a place in my heart.
14:19 the previous mission, you as Arthas' party found and destroyed the caravans distributing the tainted grain and killed the necromancer responsible for doing it, sadly, it was too late for Stratholme
That's not weird. Prince Harry was a soldier of lower rank then superiors jn the military. He said don't forget as a paladin I'm your superior. As in the army. Paladin is
I remember seeing this book online... It's basically a book that tries to apply philosophical concepts to World of Warcraft... I guess it's this one: "World of Warcraft and Philosophy: The Wrath of the Philosopher King" from 2009... Interesting idea for a book, don't have it but may get it eventually since I like both WoW and philosophy (or maybe 'liked' WoW)... Would be neat if they did another one discussing Sylvanas and the whole split personality thing and free will the topic of free will... Just because we all know that Blizzard is stupid about that... She had no freedom or responsibility after she died...
Even after playing Warcraft 3 in full and a very brief stint in WOW, I fucking hate the names in this series. I _know_ all the characters being mentioned in this video, I just never associate any names besides Arthas and a few others that are simple enough, the rest is word soup. Turalyon and Gavinrad were opposed to Mal'Ganis, Clegg'Holdfast and Taight'Bussi.
One of the things that always bothered me is that the response that usually people give out is that he really should’ve just left instead of purging the city. Like seriously where are you going to run to? Also, they completely forget that paladins are obligated to protect the week and do their best to prevent any world ending threat.
I always thought about it as a neutral vs good. Not evil vs good choice. As Vaush said, the people are doomed. But now you have the choice: you can make the situation worse but keep the high ground as the loyal good paladin... Or, do the purge, being practical and cold blooded. It's not an evil act but it's the moment Arthas stoped being a paladin. (at least moraly)
Thinking about it now, what bothers me is janina and uther's reactions to the culling. Their solution was literally let's think of something better 5head whilst malganis was literally like a few minutes away from converting the city. What better solution could you have found there? And if you did just stay and debate it with arthas. But no, bot only did they refuse to participate but they further fucked arthas mentally leading to his slow but certain decline. Man WC3 has a cool story
Oh, but Vaush, you are missing the cutscene AFTER this event that show uninfected citizens going through the carnage. The Culling is suppose to make you feel justified in your actions, just like Arthas. But afterward you are shown this cutscene of people who survived the ordeal, thus there were innocent people that could have been saved, but due to the all or nothing method Arthas had adopted, they died as well.
Because of the destruction of Stratholme, the land around it and the city itself become completely consumed by the undead. There is no saving Stratholme, there is no way for it to not be undead. Arthas may have done the right thing within the moment, but the consequences latter on blighted the land and turned the entire region that Stratholme is into the hands of the undead for probably all time. That's the thing with doing the right thing within the moment, sometimes the consequences will never agree with you regardless of your justification. Had Arthas not done what he did, the land would not have been blighted, the city might have been saved and Blood Elves would not exist. Why? Because your forces are bolstered from the undead at Stratholme as you march on the High Elves land to poison their source of magic.
@@Fangs1978 He's describing a cutscene of a story on what exactly happened that we're not directly shown. Unless you mean Vaush made this mistake in which case, yeah... that's another reason why his analysis fell flat.
@@voiceofreason467 I was talking about the fact that all the people in the houses turn when the houses are destroyed during the actual mission which Vaush used to bolster his argument that they were all infected. If I'm talking about game mechanics then I'm obviously not talking about the cut scene, but I'll admit I wasn't very clear. As far as game play goes they could all just be infected to make the mission harder or make it easier on the player by not making them kill innocent villagers. We all saw how much people freaked out over the torture scene in GTA5 years later. People generally don't like being forced to to do horrible things. I can see Vaush's perspective though it would make the point better if not all the people turned.
It's not that paladins outrank princes. It's that they are both paladins and Uthar is a higher rank paladin. It's like when British princes join the air force or navie they still have to follow chain if command. In the field.
I think the fact that both games fully show Arthas's actions at Stratholme as "difficult, but correct", is the main reason why Arthas works as a tragic villain. He was wrongly abandoned by his friends, forced to kill his own people, and have been goaded into a path of "revenge at all costs", which in turn made him play with the forces he never understood.
My main issue with the story of Arthas, is his fast descend into straight evil after claiming the Frostmourne. I kinda dislike the "powerful corrupting MacGuffin" items in storytelling. I like my villains to retain full agency.
Yeah, that's a big reason why I love Illidan so much, though he's not really a total villain. He dabbled in villainy, but his mission was always in the service of saving Azeroth from the Legion. Garrosh was pretty good too. He was just a normal orc with a very puritan idea of what the Horde should be, fell into the hyper nationalism + global conquest trap, and he power tripped until we had to kill him. The Old Gods didn't make him do it. He just wanted to do it because he believed he should.
Also, the Defias Brotherhood are the most based villains in the Warcraft universe.
The problem is this idea that Arthas went evil at Stratholme got so popular, it was never where he went evil. It was betraying his men in Northrend by burning their boats to return home with and then killing the mercenaries who helped him do that. And finally not listening to Muradin when he knew Frostmourne was cursed.
Never interpreted the actions as "difficult, but correct" and the story explicitly does not say that either lol. He was blinded by fervor and abandoned any other potential solutions, deciding that a city of tens of thousands needed to be systematically wiped out and refused to accept counsel from others. Post hoc justification of his actions is just that, post hoc justification. Arthas was an arrogant man and ended up being easily manipulated by Mal'Ganis. Not sure why people are saying what he did was "correct" and not simply committed. He had no way of knowing about Mal'Ganis until it was too late. Of course Uther wouldn't stand for this, it flies in the face of every lesson Uther gave him about The Light. Jaina at this point in the story is a big ass softy, there was never a chance she was going to stroll into a major city and start laying waste to civilians.
Saying what he did was correct kinda ignores his agency in the story and his devolvement into a hollow shell.
@@kylegonewild It's not post-hoc, he knew the effects of this plague.
He made the correct decision with the info he had. You'll notice nobody actually suggested a different path, because they also knew it was the only option.
They just couldn't bear to do it.
However, after purging an entire city, burning some boats and killing a few ogres seems like a small thing, despite this actually being evil.
@@clrdr7 100% correct. Stratholme was because there was nothing that could be done. In Northrend he had options, and chose the easiest path to victory. But if the new retcons from Shadowlands aren't rewritten, he still isn't really evil because he was being influence by Death Thanos. If Sylvannas gets a pass, then Arthas gets a pass at least back to Stratholme.
As someone who has been spending way too much time keeping up with WoW lore and how it has changed under Afrasiabi and Danuser it's fun watching someone try to understand all of the most recent madness in only a few minutes.
Well, once you put resurrection into your games, it becomes really difficult to have a consistent story.
Afrasiabi is not even a writer, the older books are great because they were written by legit writers who understood how fantasy and how this universe works, Afrasiabi used to be a Quest Designer and they should have kept him at that.
There was never any reason to keep up with WoW lore I'm so sorry you wasted so much of your time and energy
@@Nuvizzle It’s like a writing train wreck, I can’t stop looking at it. I had a similar reaction to GoT season 8.
@@yellowbeard1 And you are wrong because season 8 of GOT was a good ending.
At 4:30, uther isn't saying that all paladins outrank the prince I think, he's saying that him and arthas are both paladins, and Uther outranks Arthas within the paladin order.
correct
Yea Vaush doesn’t seem to acknowledge chain of command here. Weird
If anyone has a few spare minutes could you comment on Murdoch’s Sky News Australia. Moronic Americans are astroturfing Ukraine stories.
Correct. Uther is the leader of the Silver Hand. He is THE ranking paladin, which is already a special ranking within the hierarchy. Arthas doesn't outrank him as a paladin so he couldn't force Uther to do anything, and Uther would have refused anyway. This is why he's dismissed from service instead, since the crown prince DOES outrank Uther on the whole.
Yea, that was a really odd misunderstanding on Vaush's part. It was always incredibly clear to me that Arthas in addition to being a prince was a paladin in training and what Uther meant was in the order of paladins he held a superior rank to Arthas.
In the book Arthas: Rise of the Lich King most of the events concerning Arthas in Warcraft 3 are novelized, and one of the reasons given for Arthas slowly turning to villainy is his loss of faith, after everything that has happened the Light has slowly stopped responding to Arthas because he didn't really believe in his actions, he wanted to do the right thing but wasn't convinced if it's really the right one, the Light only answers to people who believe in what they're doing no matter what their action is (that's why the Scarlet Crusade can call upon the Light while committing atrocities), so in this difficult moment not only did his mentor and friend abandon him but also his faith
That's cool but fuck Blizzard for including important story elements in secondary/tertiary media. They've also used it as a cover to change story elements retroactively (which I'd guess this is as well) when their writers either make an oopsy or decide to make a fan theory canon.
@@SomeCallMeAku Most of the books and comics are actually great, they flesh out the world and tell stories you wouldn't be able to tell well in a video game format, though I feel the quality of them dips as time goes on, as for Arthas' book, I personally enjoy it and I don't mind the changes, clarifications and addition of more info, like something people need to realize when it comes to some of the retroactive changes is that since the release of Warcraft 3 a lot more lore was made and it has to be made compatible somehow or it would have been a bigger mess than it already is, but don't take it as me accepting every change to the lore without objections, there's some changes that still piss me off to this day
This is another case of ludonarrative dissonance tho considering that throughout the campaign his Paladin powers are only getting stronger despite him "losing his connection to the Light". Like as mentioned he gets Resurrection in this very mission, so if he's having a crisis of faith he's sure being rewarded for it with more faith-powers.
The funny thing is they did it in a sensible way with Deathknight Arthas who starts the campaign at full power but gets progressively weaker as the Lich King's power wanes.
And yet also in the In the novel of rise of the lich king, they literally have a scene when Arthas puts on the helm, where he sees the last bit of him from his paladin days pleading with him to repent
and on the other side is the Lich king telling him to allow Nerzhul to take all control
Arthas instead destroys both his old self and the lich and says he will rule but on his own, taking te blight for his own
Showing that he was never a controlled puppet but a player that needed the right deck to fall into place.
@@mckenzie.latham91 Sorry, I fail to see how this related to my comment
Yes, he did that as Lich King, assumed control over Ner'zhul and the last of his humanity, but I don't see how that relates to him losing his faith prior to picking up Frostmourne
Vaush, I never saw Stratholme as Arthas' "slippery slope", but the catalyst to his obsession with vengeance against Mal'ganis. He might not have done wrong there, it might not have been the start of his slippery slope, but it was the event that led to him losing his mind and thus starting the path to his slope.
If Stratholme simply didn't happen, Arthas would not have been so vengeance-driven and would not have gone to Northrend unless another similar event forced his hand to make another terrible decision. Hell, if Uther and Jaina had been there with him and he didn't have to do it alone, he likely could have turned out okay after it and not gone after Mal'ganis. Traumatized, but not losing his mind and doing everything to kill Mal'ganis even if it meant selling his soul.
Arthas' story wasn't "good guy do bad thing turn bad man," it was a story of a good person losing his mind from the horrors of war. He was going mad, not turning evil.
Part of the obsession was caused by his closest allies abandoning him. Uther and Jaina are incredibly powerful, they could have severely limited the amount Mal'ganis could take by assisting him and with the support of his people perhaps he wouldn't have been driven insane. They could have anchored him.
yeah arthas did the right thing in stratholme. if uther and jaina stayed with him they may have been able to prevent his obsession and drawing frostmourne, it was really all uthers fault as his mentor being stupid and abandoning his pupil
Yeah, I took it as a catalyst/slippery slope sort of thing
@@absenteechild8542 Uther and Jaina have the full right of not wanting to murder the same people that they wanted to protect. I can see why they did not want to participate in the Culling. Even if what Arthas was doing was right, him trying to force at least Uther into doing it as well was very authoritatian and not good "friend behavior" of his part. The authoritarian and kinda ruthless tendencies of Arthas were already exploited before in the previous chapters of the campaign. Stratholm is just were these aspects started getting on overdrive and started commanding Arthas actions. This is also reinforced by the burning of the boats and the killing of the mercenaries.
In the end, Arthas history is about a man who loses sight of what he needed to protect and became consumed by his own "dark side".
@@absenteechild8542 Arthas was rejecting the idea that anything else could be done and immediately jumped to killing everybody. The fact that he didn't even consider having Uther and Jaina support him limiting the spread was the problem in the first place.
You could argue that Uther and Jaina should have stayed anyway and protected the villagers from Arthas, but he went so far as disbanding the Silver Hand on the spot and throwing around an accusation of treason, implying execution for any attempts to stop him.
Vaush having more discussions on games, books, and movies could be its own successful channel.
Based and Bread-pilled.
Came for the politics, stayed for these vids
What I don't like looking back was how quickly Arthas gave up trying to convince Uther. It was implied so much throughout the campaign how strong their bond was but Uther was almost uncaring about the events of Hearthglen and deserved the rude remarks Arthas starts the cinematic with. Doesn't help that Arthas had so much time between the defense of Hearthglen and travel to Stratholme to discuss what he saw with Jaina and Uther. One of those stories where characters don't just talk to each other about extremely important shit.
Hearthglen and Stratholme are easily my favorite campaign missions in any RTS.
It would have been interesting if Arthas made a speech about how, as future king, it would be his job to carry this burden of a task, and if anyone who could not carry that burden with him was free to go.
Blizzard really knew how to make fun RTS campaigns
Uther and Arthas had a Mentor Student relationship and Uther is his superior as a Paladin so he just got really defensive that Arthas was literally giving him an order, it is said by the writer that Arthas seeing the Human Lands surrounding Lordraen falling so quickly to the Undead breaks Arthas Mentally and he becomes really Vengeful and wanted to act quickly and Uther and Arthas basically have two completely different view of this situation, Uther almost knows nothing about the plague and Arthas and Jaina are the ones that know about this so since Arthas thinks he's the Expert in this situation he tries to take over the situation, I disagree with you because Uther not wanting to murder people even if it makes sense is understandable because Paladins and their code is very strict and rigid because they always try to do the moral thing which in this case doesn't make sense but it makes sense to them, I thought Jaina leaving Arthas was way crazier than Uther leaving.
also even from the Start Uther is constantly telling Arthas to have a clear head and not to rage, he suspected Arthas to be a hot-head and wanting to punish their enemies because he's very protective of his people and constantly desires vengeance over their enemies and Paladins are against Vengeance and they're all about Justice so Uther seeing Arthas like this makes him think he was always right about Arthas, all this internal conflict is what makes Arthas great because being a Righteous Paladin and a Protective Prince is going against each other while his Mentor has been suspecting him of not being mentally tough enough to have a clear head which is why Arthas is kind of rude to Uther because he knows Uther is underestimating him
they also didn't have enough time to talk, that mission is limited by time.
also the Menethils are very stubborn people, earlier before all that happened Medivh warned Arthas' father but he dismissed him as a crazy wizard, they were heavily losing the war at that point, so them being aggressive and chaotic makes sense.
@@Ar1AnX1x I agree with your analysis, but boy howdy, you should avoid run-on sentences.
They made your post quite hard to read 😁
I always thought Jaina left because she knew she couldn't stomach to watch, not that he was wrong.
@@Nerobyrne yeah I usually try to put in as few words as possible and put spaces between different sentences and points, this one turned in to a mess.
I just wanted point out a couple of things but I'm just such a Warcraft 3 nerd
We need more Warcraft III stunlocks
Honestly, I think Arthas' slippery slope towards cillainy started before Strathlome. It began all the way back in the defense of Hearthglen. Arthas was shook by the intensity of the attack, you see him almost break when it's almost over.
Being the only one who knows exactly just how great a threat the Undead are and could be, he becomes desperate to kill Mal'Ganis as quickly aa possible. The desperation and horror he feels as he conducts the purge of Stratholme take theit toll on his sanity, which eventually lead to his actions in Northrend.
The purge of Stratholme was absolutely necessary, but Arthas was simply not mentally or emotionally stable enough to deal with that situation unscathed.
Arthas did nothing wrong in Stratholme. He just broke under the pressure. Even if it was objectively the right choice, it broke him anyway.
You are correct imo, people tend to forget Hearthglen as an important point in the campaign, neither Jaina or Uther had to withstand what Arthas and his men did, they arrived at the last minute to save the town, they lacked the experience and context Arthas had and so his decision to purge Stratholme seemed unreasonable
It wasn't a slippery slope, it was a descent into madness. Those are two different themes, and understanding that is key to understanding Arthas' story.
Yeah thats the real tragedy. It is annoying Unther and Jena acted the way they did. Writers should have bit the bullet, that they live with it, it was the right decision, but it haunts them they couldn't do it, and helped break Arthas even more.
@@shaunsmith9013 Yeah. I can't put into words how much I hate that the future writers decided to write it like Arthas was in the wrong here because they got the horny for Sylvanas and therefore Arthas has to be Literally Hitler in everything he ever did.
It's the same deal with Starcraft, the Protoss purifying Terran worlds overran by the Zerg was just Stratholme on a larger level, but because Chris Metzen got the horny for Kerrigan and she hates Protoss suddenly it became the Zerg aren't as bad as we originally said and the Protoss are wrong? Like there are literally missions of Kerrigan committing outright genocide on Protoss colonists and the games still made her the savior of the universe while the Protoss were wrong in everything they ever did and could only make it right by mutilating themselves and removing a huge part of their species' entire identity.
His friends also abandoned him. He lost all support, but took his duty as prince seriously.
4:20 Uther outranks him "as a paladin" because they are both paladins and Arthas is still in training.
Holy shit I did not expect this.
Sylvanus isn't even a pale humanoid, she's a ghost who is possessing her own corpse.
He did the right thing that was a trap. Malganis knew he would do the right thing and that would destroy him and leave him alone.
Arthas engaged in a special military operation in the region of Stratholme.
"Glad you could make it Arthas"
"Watch your tone with me Arthas, you may be my Arthas but I'm still your superior as an Arthas"
"Hush, Uther, are you tone policing me? That is so gauche. I am going to report this micro-aggression to my father: the King. And no, I am not mad, I just have resting prince face."
As a well-informed Arthas, I greatly appreciate and thank you for this this Arthas-related reference to an Arthas made by Nixxthas and Arthcluck :)
He wasn’t having a “moral decline”, he was getting whispers from Nerzhul
I always took the scene as supposed to be a sketchy moment, he shows no hesitation that a normal, compassionate person would have. A person who is a little too eager to push the fat man in front of the trolley to save the people is a red flag
Plus, it's also probably extremely traumatizing
There's an overlap with the trolley problem, the question of something evil explicitly done to prevent something worse, sometimes it gets brought up in psychology contexts to discuss the dissonance between moral systems and what one is comfortable with doing
His hesitation came after, which it kind of had to. The culling of Stratholme and the condemnation he received by Uther and Jaina definitely contributed to the internal conflict that led to him taking Frostmourne and becoming the Lich King. Uther and Jaina could have potentially prevented him from turning, stopping one of the greatest conflicts of WoW in its tracks.
@@absenteechild8542 The problem was his attitude. He tried to force Uther by using his position callously instead of sharing with Uther what he knew. THEN he called Uther a traitor for refusing to kill people in cold blood, needed as it might have been. He should have called for volunteers to join him in making the hard decision, or joined with uther and the paladins to quarantine the city and kill the people after they had turned to the undead. The issue was his attitude and heart, not the actions he was taking. Just listen how he speaks to Uther the entire time, he was already slipping into a narcisistic savior complex.
@@Bl4ckDr4co its funny that people even after covid still think that putting a giant city (dont forget stratholme is the second biggest city in lordaeron, second only to the capital itself) under quarantine is actually something you can do, especially since we knew at that point that the transformation happens within hours of eating the stuff. Plus in the book at least its rather obvious that if the entire city where to turn, that army wouldve overrun arthas/uthers troops and basically overrun lordaeron as a whole, and that was before they even knew that there was a dreadlord involved who could lead the army. There simply was no time to explain anything, i mean by the time arthas started purging, people where already turning. So even with all the knowledge we have as viewers/players and ingame knowledge decades after the purging, it was still the only option that saved lordaeron as a whole. For me personally arthas did never anything wrong until he went to northrend, everything on northrend, including the decision to go there in the first place, was just a bad idea, but at that point the 2 most important people in his life have already abandoned him and someone forced him to kill his own people, so from a psychological point it makes sense that he blinded by vengeance. I mean in the book even jaina basically agrees that purging the city is the only choice, and she would rather die than turn into a monster that kills their loved ones, she left because she "couldnt do this" not because its the wrong choice, and uther didnt even take the situation seriously enough (pretty much like lordaeron and the kirin tor as a whole didnt take the scourge seriously enough until it was too late). Nothing about arthas was narcisistic (at least not at that point) he hated himself for having to do this (which they sadly completely gloss over in the game), but as a prince he was quite literally the only one there with the authority to even give such a command, and refusing to follow a direct order from your prince (unless the king says something else) is by definition treason, could he have said that a little nicer? sure, was there time for formalities in this situation? not really. Which is really a way too long way of saying: if you only played the game i totally get your point, but if you read the book, its clear that arthas made the decision that would've saved the most lives, or really any lives at all.
@@nirodi3012 excuse me... then HOW THE FUCK did Arthas even manage to cull that entire Gigantic City?
if you're going to exaggerate the size of Stratholme, then the How the culling could even be possible in this scenario is very important now, because this is a very big wrench you just threw into the story and now there's no way Arthas had anywhere near the force required to slaughter them all, even while they were still among the living.. The city was big, but it was big relative to a Medieval city/setting, where as today in our world, the smallest villages are comparable in size to some of the big cities of medieval times.
How is it possible for Arthas to cull a massive city, but not possible for him, Jaina, Uther, all their forces combined, to allow an escape route for even however few survivors they could've saved in this whole horrible ordeal?
I'm not saying they could saved the WHOLE ENTIRE city, or even half of it for that matter, but saving any number of people that could've been saved would've been the best choice in this situation, where as what he chose was to slaughter, literally, everyone in the city, without even investigating the severity of the situation or checking for infection on the individuals, or anything.
@@itzi7868 I didnt exaggerate anything, its stated in the books that stratholme is the second biggest city in lordaeron(that still doesnt mean its on the scale of a modern day city, i thought that obvious). And it obviously took much longer than the 30mins it took back in wc3. Not to mention that arthas still had a decent chunk of his army with him. And i dont think i have to explain to you that even a relatively small army of trained soldiers can easily kill a huge amount of untrained (and for the most part unarmed) civilians in a short amount of time.
Imagine thinking Griffith was right after he initiated the Eclipse.
I don't think it was the wrong choice, I think Arthas' failure in this moment was how he drove away his friends like an evil autocrat rather than find away to achieve the same goal while keeping his allies. He jumped to a conclusion and drove away his comrades when they didn't instantly fall in line. Just because it happened to be the correct conclusion doesn't fix his broken relationships.
This is basically it. Arthas was right, or as right as could be reasonably reached with the information available at the time. The people couldn't be saved and to prevent the situation from getting worse needed to be culled. Amputated like an hand infected with flesh eating disease to save the rest of the body.
Arthas was also a complete asshole who barely attempted to explain why this was needed and why nothing else could be done. And worse when people balked at the treatment because it was horrific rather than leaving them be and carrying on with what had to be done he punished them and drove them off.
Uther and Jaina made Arthas into Lich King.
@@assarefternamn5704 Shut up troll
So, we're trusting the game is representing the facts of the story objectively. If this mission actually portrayed the purge as perceived by Arthas and his followers, then the civilians would all be "infected". It would cool if there were a cut-scene from Jaina or Uther's perspective, where some civilians don't turn into zombies. That would cast doubt on Arthas assumption.
There actually kind of is, later on you see jaina and uther burning the bodies of the people of stratholme with the help of some civilians, presumably the people that werent infected and survived the purge
Even if some don't, most would or did. And then the zombies would kill the uninfected anyway.
Ah Feb 7th, a different time. A more innocent time.
I remember it as though it was last year...
*...What do you mean it was "THIS year"!?!*
Pretty sure Arthas saved Azeroth or the Alliance by purging the city, Stratholme was a huge problem, imagine if they just had ignored them, the power the scourage would have had, the only reason the Undead were so strong and able to stomp The Blood Elves was because of Loerdaron being turned into zombies, if not, the Undead would not have become a so strong.
Also I think Uther knows he is still under the service of Arthas as his prince, but he is still a higher rank as a Paladin, he is treating him as a fellow Paladin not royalty
Because of the destruction of Stratholme, the land around it and the city itself become completely consumed by the undead. There is no saving Stratholme, there is no way for it to not be undead. Arthas may have done the right thing within the moment, but the consequences latter on blighted the land and turned the entire region that Stratholme is into the hands of the undead for probably all time. That's the thing with doing the right thing within the moment, sometimes the consequences will never agree with you regardless of your justification. Had Arthas not done what he did, the land would not have been blighted, the city might have been saved and Blood Elves would not exist.
You've got the entire thing backwards. His burning and destruction of Stratholme literally bolstered the forces of the Undead in such a way that made it possible for him to call on as many legions of undead as he did. You literally lead the forces of undead from Stratholme to the land of the High Elves.
I think the hierarchy is such that the title of Prince only means "going to be king one day but for know this means literally nothing else". The prince has very little authority, if any at all. Any respect given to the title is a choice not an obligation. I could be wrong tho thats just the general vibe I got.
@@voiceofreason467 no. You're right. Arthas doing the while purge was the reason he chased after Malganis. It was is slipper slope. I think had he not chosen to go further in his goals, he could have been saved.
@@absenteechild8542 That's true, there were certain princes in Europe that the people never respected until they were King and even then they only did it out of fear of execution, never out of respect.
@@voiceofreason467 I specifically meant in the specific WoW kingdom, I'm not much of a history buff. But that makes a lot of sense generally.
Undead are people too. Can't believe Vaush would be this racist
M'lady
The Stratholme episode of WC3 was lackluster writing. Had they set up an alternative means of saving Stratholme citizens, like a new treatment to reverse the plague but it's uncertain and inefficient, and have Arthas forgo the riskier but more compassionate treatment in favor of a scorched earth campaign, then the moral slippery slope would have made a lot more sense.
Agree, while in concept the chapter is awesome (especially gameplay wise) when it comes to the actual writing behind it could have definitely been executed quite a bit better, like I really loved your idea of the potential but unreliable cure, something akin to that would had still kept some of that grey morality and "dificult choice" aspect they were going for, while still clearly conveying Arthas was definitely going kinda insane and crossing a terrible threshold. Had they done something like that we wouldn't have people going "ActUaLLy ArThAs DiD NoThInG WrONg" lmao
I think I'd like to see more of Vaush doing Warcraft stuff. He knows his lore and I personally enjoy when both my favourite streamer and long time favourite game cross over
Uther: "Glad I could make it Arthas"
Arthas: "I watch my tone with you, Oldman, I may be the Prince but you're still my Superior as a Paladin."
Uther: "as if you could forget, Listen Arthas, there's something about the Plague I should know."
Uther: "Oh no, We're too late, these people have all been infected, they may look fine now but it's only a matter of time before they turn in to the undead."
Arthas: "WHAT?!"
Uther: "This ENTIRE CITY must be purged"
Arthas: "how can I even consider that? there's got to be some other way."
Uther: "DAMN IT ARTHAS, as my future king, Order me to purge this city."
Arthas: "I'm not your king yet, Oldman, Nor should you Obey that command even if I were."
Uther: "then you must consider this an act of treason."
Arthas: "TREASON?! Have I lost my mind Uther?"
Uther: "Have you? Prince Arthas, by your right of succession and sovereignty of your crown, you hereby relieve me of my command and suspend my Paladins from service."
Jaina: "Uther...he can't jus-"
Uther: "ITS DONE, those of you who have the will to save this land, follow him, the rest of you, get out of his sight."
Arthas: "I've just crossed terrible threshold, Uther."
Jaina: "Arthas?..."
Arthas: "I'm sorry Jaina, you can't watch me do this."
Subarashi
This is why I love the old storytelling in blizzard. It was simple but so well told.
The thing is Arthas was RIGHT! Everyone in the town had to be purged but slaughtering his own people mentally broke Arthas in a way he could never recover from. I think that was the point. mal'ganis did this to Stratholme because he knew what it would do to Arthas
If only Vaush had been there to give Arthas rhetorical advice in convincing Uther
He is correct but as uther says it's the threshold for crossing the line and this is the start to him turning evil. If he stopped here and exampled why this was needed to be done because he was the only one the dreadlords told what the plague was but he keeps going
I am BEGGING for more Vaush WoW lore breakdowns please
People out here calling this a trolley problem are stupid, who's life are you saving if you don't kill the infected townsfolk? They're already dead, killing Mal'Ganis won't save them. It's like a zombie bite, they're infected and within hours they start turning into zombies, so you mercy kill them before they become a zombie.
Steve Danuser really did Arthas dirty with how his role in Warcraft has ended recently. Now... all there is left of him is a flickering ball of blue light that is literally only worth 35 anima.
Arthas is one of Warcraft's most iconic characters, and this debate as to whether his actions in Stratholme were right or wrong that still continues to this day is testament to that.
Now he's literally been wiped completely from existence in an unceremonious manner while Sylvanas gets to monologue about what a naughty boy he was.
As to where I stand on the Stratholme question... yes, Arthas did nothing wrong. His choice there was either kill those people before they become zombies or to have to kill them anyway after they become zombies.
That said, this is the beginning of his downfall. His faith in The Light is shaken by Uther's refusal to go along with this plan, and seeing Jaina Proudmoore turn her back on him.
But another thing about being able to wield The Light is that you don't necessarily have to be a good person to wield it. You just have to BELIEVE you're a good person... The Scarlet Crusade are a prime example of evil people who can use The Light. They believe their cause is righteous, that they are going to Make Lordaeron Great Again... and yet they torture and murder anyone who opposes them and are human supremacists... also, their leader is a Dreadlord.
Also, in Burning Crusade, the Blood Elves found another way of tapping into The Light... by siphoning it from a Naaru that Kael'thas Sunstrider captured from Tempest Keep and sent back to Silvermoon... though they don't do that anymore and draw upon The Light no different to anyone else at this point.
Except Arthas showed many times before Stratholme that he had no issue with bloody massacre or bloodlust which often alarmed the people around him for how quick he was to use brutality as a solution when a Paladin is supposed to be above such vitriol responses
Again Arthas’s first response to the plague infecting the city was to order everyone (even those who may not have been infected, or who could still survive) to be mass slaughtered, ignoring Uther and Jaina’s concerns and council and even using his position as prince/future king to try and force their obedience…
and this wasn’t the first time he showed frustration at having to be reigned in by others.
The problem that to me shows that it was wrong and that Arthas’s true nature got revealed the more he felt he was justified in not having to hide it, is that Arthas showed no hesitancy or remorse or even guilt, even if it was the right action, at least Uther, Jaina and others had the right level of horror at the concept, arthas didn't
there is also a cutscene AFTER the purge that shows uninfected citizens trying to escape through the carnage as well as helping Jaina and Uther burn the bodies, and it's this cutscene that shows that there were uninflected people who survived the ordeal, and were caught up in the purge and thus there were innocent people that could have been saved, but due to the kill em all and let the gods sort them out mentality Arthas had adopted, many probably died as well.
so actually Arthas was wrong, furthermore destroying the city only permanently delivers the land into the hands of the blight and undead, the blight taking hold from all the blood and destruction.
And arthas even then shows how little he cares baout his people and more his own selfish desires and pride, by refusing to go after the burning legion at Calamdore and instead purses Mal'gannis who he has a personal prideful feud with, leaving Jaina to take and lead the survivors to safety at Calmadore while he ignores confronting the actual threat, the burning legion itself which he was literally advised to do along with Terranis.
@@mckenzie.latham91 'many times' before Stratholme he had no issue with 'bloody massacres'? What the hell are you talking about? Stratholme was his first.
@@HouseOfAlastrian During the campaign against the orcs
Uther has to literally scold Arthas for taking vengeance’s/hatreds path (against the paladin way)
when Arthas comments on how they should exterminate the entire orc force like animals
The virgin kantian uther vs the sigma utilitarian arthas.
As Asmongold said, Arthas made the decision only a king and a ruler could make. I agree he made the correct call on this instance, but part of what makes it so interesting is the discussion it provokes. Some takes makes more sense than others though.
4:06 I can explain, you see Uther is part of the Order of the Knights the Silver Hand, an order of Paladins from the many Kingdoms of Azeroth, they are like an international organization, Arthas is the prince of Lordaeron but also a member of the Silver Hand, as a senior member of the Order Uther out rank Arthas, but as a citizen of Lordaeron Arthas out ranks him
18:00 They should have just said that resurrection is a backdoor to death and the gods of the afterlife or whatever don't notice when a random level 13 druid gets resurrected but when it's the warchief or anyone of historical significance they make sure they stay dead. And then you can have more powerful resurrection spells that work on bigger characters etc
Or that more powerful souls require more elaborate rituals, more powerful spells, and that the most basic spells only work for a few moments after death.
I love how in the start of this he's hyped up by Warcraft 3 Lore and then he's confused and bored by the current World of Warcraft Lore, that's literally how it is.
The part that people are missing in the equation is the danger of the plague. We already have quarantine protocols irl for diseases that are much much less dangerous than the plague of undeath. This is a disease that not only kills you quickly, not only spreads, but after you die turns you into a malicious vector that has no desire other than to spread the plague and kill. We have nothing in the real world that is that dangerous.
The best Arthas could theoretically do would be set up a quarantine zone where civilians could go, under soldier supervision, in chains, and if any of them turn they get kills instantly. But even then, this is assuming he has the time and men to set this up, along with it ignoring the fact mal'ganis was there, actively speeding up the spread and process.
This was always a losing situation, and bloodshed was unavoidable. Inaction results in the entire town dying anyway, and being turned into a mindless slave army that can further spread the plague. My hypothetical comes with a huge risk, that if it goes wrong results in Arthas and his army being wiped out along with the town. And given the time pressures it would likely go wrong.
If any of the factors were loosened. If the plague was less dangerous. If he had more time. If Mal'ganis wasn't actively there, then maybe a better solution could be found. But given the set up, no, he did make the most pragmatic choice. He wasn't wrong.
The problem is, Arthas actions, blighted the land delivering it forever into the hands of the undead and was used to bolster his forces as he ended up marching on the High Elves land. If Arthas hadn't done it, the entire region could have been saved while the city itself could have been lost. This you'd have a city walled off magically like an undead prison, but no way for the blight to reach the rest of the region and infect everything. What Arthas did in the moment might have been right, but the consequences don't care about whether you're in the right or not in the moment.
@@voiceofreason467 But we're talking about narrative consequences here, and this is shown as the tipping point for his moral decline. The way characters and the story react, it's meant to be his decision is wrong through and through. The moral compass characters disagree and leave (without offering any other solution no less), and condemn his actions. What we are presented with doesn't justify the narrative repercussions.
It sucks as it wouldn't take much tweaking to make this moment work perfectly. You can have Uther leave, saying that while it's the right choice, he simply cannot bring himself to kill his countrymen. He leaves in what he sees as shame, and Jaina stands by Arthas, knowing this is a painful choice. The purge happens the same, and it breaks Arthas. Now he becomes hellbent on revenge, like he does anyway, and ends up pushing those away from him due to his actions after the fact. Maybe a faction of his men lose faith in him as they had to kill their own kin. Maybe other nobles call him a butcher for his actions, not knowing the stakes. All these pressures building up on him.
It would still be that the purge was the tipping point in his story, the thing that sends him down a dark path. But not because he made the morally wrong choice and no-one offered a different solution, but just that he had an all too human reaction to such a difficult thing to do.
@@Crawver Well, you guy's deal with the narrative of the characters, I'm dealing with the consequences of the world itself and how certain actions lead to another and ask the question, "What could have been done differently?" But we should also remember that the Blight is magical in nature, thus it can likely be countered by magic at the very least (we know now it can be stopped from spreading further through magical wards and by keeping the disease from spreading and roaming free). I mean the narrative stuff involving characters and justifying is all well and good, but those topics have been done to death at this point so I turn my particular issue with what Vaush says as basically pointing out the narrative consequences of the world itself responds to his actions and hardly anyone is willing to talk about that aspect of everything.
@@voiceofreason467 It's all make belief magic bs. Zombies aren't real, magic isn't real, and everything we saw was being made up as it went along. None of the mechanical consequences had to be written as they were. The plague of undeath was pretty new to the series, so it didn't even need to have any conflicting lore or consequences. So gesturing at the mechanical outcomes as justification for what ends up being a really flimsy story moment in a story is putting the cart before the horse.
Again, so little needed to be altered to actually have this moment have real bite. But just deferring to lore rules that were new at the time as justification as to why it couldn't be better, when that lore is just as much part of the writing as the narrative is really weird.
@@Crawver Thx for informing me that fantasy is not real... and thank you very much for also informing me that you can't extrapolate certain thing's from this. The thing that ultimately makes me think of this as a point against consequentialism is the Rwandan Genocide. Because in a way it has a similar sort of setting, trying to right a wrong that was done by educating a population out of that mindset only for those people to then go on a genocide slaughter spree, all with the greatest of intentions. While not a perfect analogy, the attempt to right that wrong was a good thing but the consequences speak for themselves. This is the reason why I find this particular issue of "its fantasy bro, don't take it so seriously because none of the mechanical consequences are like this" without realizing that the mechanical consequences are about how we often cannot predict fully to any satisfying degree of what will actually happen or how it will backfire. Sometimes its best just to do nothing at than do the right thing, because the consequences of doing the right thing in the moment will eventually yield monstrous results regardless of your actions or intent to make it so certain consequences happen over others. That is what I'm extrapolating from this, you are extrapolating character consistency and ethical character integrity.
Clearly we're taking this into different directions, but I'd appreciate not ignoring my points just to argue in favor of yours when mine deals with a greater contextual element of how the world reacts as opposed to how characters act and feel justified and whether their feeling is justified. I figured you';d be interested in talking about the merits, but I guess not, you want self masturbatory sentiments and say "they were right" without exploring the fundamentals of the world reacting the way they are. That's fine, but don't say my particular interpretation and mode of discussion isn't worth having, its kind of disrespectful. I honestly don't find any reason to engage in a side of this topic that has basically been beaten to death at this point, but thats my particular issue with your points.
arthas was right to purge stratholme. end of story.
Ah back when Warcraft's story was worth a thought.
Here's how they could have made the story actually morally ambivalent:
Before he dies Kel'thuzad says something about the people of Stratholme joining the Scourge soon enough. So Arthas travels there, demands Uther and his forces assist him in purging the city, which they obviously refuse since its obviously a trick by Kel'thuzad, and many of Arthas' own men abandon him as well. Arthas sees to the city being purged anyway, all the while never actually encountering any undead.
And shortly after it is done, the deliveries of plagued grain arrive.
I like the actual Stratholme storyline but yours is also nice. Although I don't think it would be just "morally ambivalent" in that case, it would just be genocide with a "whoopsie" in the end haha.
Literally wouldn't make sense for Arthas to do that, and even less sense for him to after that fiasco, go on the journey that led him to Frost Mourne, and becoming the Lich King.
Heh. I remember when Nathanos had a generic Forsaken model with his two big ass Hyenas. Just chillin out in the Plaguelands with his hidden raid boss stats
I agree. His actual moral slide happens later. Additionally, yes. Warcraft is so horribly inconsistent. Lore is fucked.
I think his psyche slipped here tho, if anything the fault is on the shoulder of Uther and Jaina. He actually made a tough moral choice and was abandoned by his closest allies, making an already severe problem even worse.
Arthas blighted the land forever delivering the region into the hands of the Undead forces. He was wrong, the consequences show this. Wtf is wrong with people where they're willing to ignore the literal consequences of fictional characters actions all because they can't be bothered to look at the moral calculus that was made by the narrative after the fact?
Except Arthas showed many times before Stratholme that he had no issue with bloody massacre or bloodlust which often alarmed the people around him for how quick he was to use brutality as a solution when a Paladin is supposed to be above such vitriol responses
Again Arthas’s first response to the plague infecting the city was to order everyone (even those who may not have been infected, or who could still survive) to be mass slaughtered, ingoing council and even using his position as prince to try and force obedience…
and this wasn’t the first time he showed frustration at having to be reigned in by others.
there is also a cutscene AFTER the purge that shows uninfected citizens trying to escape through the carnage. this cutscene shows that there were uninflected people who survived the ordeal, thus there were innocent people that could have been saved, but due to the kill em all and let the gods sort them out mentality Arthas had adopted, they died as well.
so actually Arthas was wrong, furthermore as pointed out destroying the city only permanently delivers the land into the hands of the blight and undead, the blight taking hold from all the blood and destruction
furthermore i would argue that Arthas did not care about his people, he simply wanted to protect the kingdom he would inherit
showing a willingness to abandon his own men to their deaths, to sacrifice others, and as mentioned before be quick to violate paladin ways with brutality and violence as a go to solution first.
The biggest sign that Arthas cared less about his people and more about the kingdom he thought was rightfully his to be his domain (and thus didn’t like other forces taking it from him)
is when he refused alongside Terranis to take their survivors and people/armies to Calamdore to fight the burning the legion itself, who was behind Mal’Gannis and everything that had befallen them.
Instead Arthas and Terranis refuse out of pride, and it’s Jaina who takes the survivors there and is the one actually trying to save/thinking of the people.
Arthas was a spoiled, arrogant, bloodthirsty brat and willfully chose his path and actions despite circumstances being manipulated by others, he didn’t care about the decisions being right or wrong and seemed to more and more reveal his true nature as he grew more powerful and believed he didn’t need to fear consequences anymore.
@@mckenzie.latham91 kudos, chill tho. noone asked for an essay.
This scene isn't pivotal for what Arthas does. It is pivotal because Jaina and Uther both leave Arthas by himself at this point, leaving him only caused him to fall deeper and deeper into his madness.
I found that Arthas burning his own ships using troll and ogre mercenaries in Northrend to be a moustache twirling villain moment.
I gasped when I learned that that is what Hernando Cortez did when he was fighting against the Aztec empire. What a truly evil man.
Vaush should do some takes on the differences between the intros of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2
I never played WOW, but I’ve heard a lot about it.
"SEE? THEY ARE GREEN TINTED."
I think I recall somewhere from another WoW youtuber that the plague is literally uncurable? There was a whole WoW questline about this one person getting infected and eventually succumbing to the disease and it took like the magic of dragons to even just prevent him from coming back as undead
The canonicity of that quest might be suspect since it was meant to be an allegory for a Blizzard Executive’s brother dying of cancer. I thought it was Metzen’s brother but I’m not certain on that
Warcraft 3 stream when?
Finally something I can agree with Vaush on.
This is like the angel of death carrying out a mercy killing.
The thing is, you get a cutscene for after the purge is done with Jaina walking through the slaughtered city. In it you can see random citizens collecting the bodies and mourning the dead. This suggests that some survived the purge (they might have hidden or something) and did not in fact turn into the undead afterwards, meaing Arthas probably purged a lot of uninfected as well and the whole "every house has zombies in it" was just a gameplay convention for the mission and shouldn't be taken story-literally. Arthas might have still been right, but it's not quite as cut-and-dry.
I think it's genius story telling.
The reason it works is because he's correct in doing this, but it's still a really heinous act.
By doing it, he realizes in the worst of ways just how horrifying the Legion is, and will now stop at nothing to defeat them.
Except he doesn’t
The biggest sign that Arthas cared less about his people and more about the kingdom he thought was rightfully his to be his domain (and thus didn’t like other forces taking it from him)
is when he refused alongside Terranis to take their survivors and people/armies to Calamdore to fight the burning the legion itself, who was behind Mal’Gannis and everything that had befallen them.
Instead Arthas and Terranis refuse out of pride, and it’s Jaina who takes the survivors there and is the one actually trying to save/thinking of the people.
The fact that the purge of stratholme was justifiable was thematically important.
Content drought so dry the editors had to go back an entire month to find something to post
Here what I never understood how does Arthas being the one who slaughters the people of Startholme prevent Mal'ganis or anyone else from raising them as zombies? Even by his own twisted logic Arthas failed to "save his people" the culling of Stratholme only makes sense as a narrative display of the creeping insanity and stubbornness that would eventually lead Arthas to ruin otherwise it serves no purpose
He's a paladin. Holy power. And undead take magic and relatively intact bodies to make. Those big hammers are good at fighting skeletons
@@verager2493
Eh I don't know Vaush brought up why the tactics that were so successful in Stratholme wnot repeated anywhere else and I feel like that's because Stratholme was more about getting Arthas to crack rather then merely the simple goal of growing the undead army
The culling also literally blights the land forever, turning it into a permanent holding for the undead. Even after the destruction of major bosses in Stratholme, the place is still blighted and still roaming with undead. Arthas didn't save Stratholme, he delivered it forever into the hands of the undead. So even consequentially, Arthas is wrong, despite right in the moment.
@@MrElionor I feel it's more because writing is a distant 5th in the priorities of the Warcraft property.
And it's possible this was organized, at least in part, to mess up Arthas, because this sort of thing fucks a dude up. Doesn't change that it was necessary
@@voiceofreason467 Shifting writers notwithstanding, there are objectively fewer undead in Stratholme than there would be if Arthas had not killed a bunch of them.
If anything this is a confirmation that if Uther and/or Jaina had helped, Stratholme would not have been "saved" per se, but the undead war machine would be greatly diminished, and Arthas may have not gone insane from having all of his closest friends abandon him
I think if the Warcraft movies continued the Lich King story arc would have been a major hit like Lord of The Rings hit.
Never understood why they didnt do that, that story is so much more interesting then what the movie did
@@heyy1829 from what ibheardbthe director wanted to tell the first 3 games. It did really well in China. I was hoping that would limp us along.
@@heyy1829 it sux it bombed cuz it was a movie made for fans of the brand. And it just didn't sell. I thought it was a decent movie that kept the lore on point. Imagine if the resident evil guy made this xD
A small correction to Vaush, the Sylvanas bikini art is, in fact, *not* official.
They didn't infect more grain because it could only work once, as a sneak attack, and they had to actually infect all the grain.
So they had to control the distribution area for long enough to perform the ritual, while also staying undetected by the wider Alliance forces so that it actually gets shipped where it needs to go.
Damn this sucked me right back into the wow days
It's now cannon that Vaush is a Death Knight
I feel like there's a misinterpretation from people who follow Warcraft Lore (as convoluted as it has become, who can blame anyone. I've all but given up after Legion with the constant rewriting), in thinking that the Culling of Stratholme was his 'turning point' it was *A* turning point. But it wasn't *THE* turning point. Had Uther or Jaina (preferably both) remained with him, there was probably a small chance that he would have lead his foolish expedition into Northrend to chase Mal'ganis.
Was what he did to the City what someone could argue as Evil? Possibly, you could TRY and frame it as being Lawful Evil - doing something wrong in the pursuit of ones goals or internal code. But I think that'd be flawed.
Hell, the flashback dungeon in WoW and the couple of missions leading up to Stratholme prime the players to understand that the tainted grain is basically a guaranteed death sentence for those that eat it. And when they die shortly after eating it, they come back to 'life' as the mindless undead.
If you *really* want to look towards his true downfall, look at him burning his ships to keep his men trapped in Northrend with him and then blaming it on the 'monsters' (Aka, the neutral goblin, ogre, and troll mercenaries that had been helping you up to that point).
In those last days/weeks where he was truly capable of *real* evil in service of getting his revenge on Mal'ganis.
If the Culling had gone any other way, you might have been looking at someone who would likely not have been praised, but at least understood and respected for being a Ruler who was willing to take on such a uniquely horrifying burden onto themselves in service of their kingdom and their people. But instead, with the abandonment of some of his closest friends and the goading of a master deceiver, one of the greatest tragic heroes-turned-villains in Warcraft was born.
Wrath of the Lich King was regarded as the last "Great" expansion by many people, and it's hard not to see why -- even if I personally consider Mists of Pandaria my favorite; the level of talent that went into Orcs & Humans and what eventually turned into Warcraft 2, 3, Vanilla, TBC, and WotLK lead to such an epic and cathartic expansion that even Legion; which saw us finally seeing and 'dealing' with Sargares didn't even come close to scratching the same itch. And this is coming from someone that loves Illidan, Demon Hunters, and all the Bizarre Warhammer Space/Warp/Chaos stuff that WoW ripped off probably to an irrational degree.
😂 the funny thing is that Mal’Ganis is back in Shadowlands, so we didn’t fully end him in legion. Can’t kill him.
The problem was the outcome. Ner’zhul had a new champion to crush Lordaeron while Lordaeron lost a king an a prince and eventually fragmented.
The problem was that Arthas showed no hesitancy or remorse or even guilt, even if it was the right action, at least Uther, Jaina and others had the right level of horror at the concept, arthas didn't
which to me shows that Arthas was long a blood thirsty warmonger who was more concerned with preserving his future kingdom for himself then about others and or right and wrong.
His obsession with Mal’gannis was a personal feud of pride which he put his habove the safety and future of his people, since Arthas actually refused the advice to take the survivors and armies to Calamdore and fight the Burning Legion itself, instead he refuses out of Pride and its Jaina who takes them there, while Arthas goes after Mal’Gannis instead of the whole burning legion becasue Mal’Gannis has irked/pissed him off and his pride won’t let him leave it until he’s killed him.
how did arthas know everybody just had been eating raw, tainted grain?
Lorderan fell anyway. Arthas slaughtered untold innocents for nothing. In fact his actions here is largely the reason he started his journey to become the lich king, is victory by any means necessary really victory? Would he have he pursued Frostmoune had he not taken this step?
The thing is Vaush, it's not that he did anything wrong per se, but it's an indication of his overall mentality. He's always extremely quick to resort to mass murder and violence as a solution to problems and Uther chides him for it in the second mission of the game where he's like "Yeh let's like murder all the orc vermin for glory" and Uther is like "That's really not paladin like" and begins to give a shpeel about the mentality one needs and Arthas just goes "Yeh whatever".
He does this constantly. So then we get to Stratholme and Mr Murder is like "Yeah let's just kill everyone" and by this point Uther has had enough of his shit and loses it on him because now he's saying it about his own people too. Uther might be wrong in the specific instance, but you can totally see why he reacts the way he does.
Imagine it's a straight up zombie movie and before the apocalypse even happens you've got some kill crazy nutjob hanging around constantly suggesting murder as a solution to problems like the starbucks guy getting your order wrong and you have to physically restrain him from decapitating service workers on the regular. It really colors things when they're the person to suggest we murder the bitten folk before we even know precisely how many are bit or exactly how the infection works or if there's a cure and so on. It becomes almost impossible to take them seriously and by that point they've done it so often you've developed new wrinkles in your brain to handle the input of telling them to shut the fuck up and calm down. That they're right in the specific instance is besides the point that it's a suggestion and plan that someone *else* has to suggest and that they need to reach that conclusion themselves because they know Murdery McMurderface is saying it because they're a psycho who hasn't even done the utilitarian calculus properly. And the characters don't get a chance to reach the conclusion themselves because Arthas throws a hissy fit and pulls rank on them and dismisses them before they can get into the city and see for themselves that he's right.
Arthas is also assured and confident in his decision and has no remorse for it, even in terms of "Well it sucked but it was necessary.". He just gets angry at Malganis for it and it's always in terms of "You took my subjects from me" rather than "You killed people".
He was always a psycho, it's just that the game places him in situations where it obscures that from the player in various ways until it very suddenly doesn't. But by that point "Oh it's the Lich King doing it.". Except it isn't. He isn't being mind controlled. This is explicit in side universe content.
Like, he's written as a legitimately psychopathic person until the dumbshit shadowlands stuff. He even keeps a serial killer momento chest with Sylvanas' blood in it, alongside stuff from other people he's ruined the lives of.
Most forsaken continue to rot and have to patch themselves back together using other peoples dead body parts.
There were really only two options at Stratholme. A) the route Arthas took, or B) get reinforcements and prepare to hold back the flood of undead that would have soon emerged from the city (Stratholme had about 25 000 inhabitants at the time and most of them would have turned before measures could have been taken to sort out and save any non-infected citizens).
So yeah, either massacre innocents since there was no way to tell who was infected or not, or risk legions of undead being unleashed upon Lordaeron (and trap any non-infected citizens inside the city with the undead)
Art has was right about Stratholme. He was wrong to throw Uther under the bus for recoiling at the horror of the purge. Instead of ordering Uther to purge the city, he should have respected his mentor and explained as they headed into the city. As the people start to turn, Uther would have seen the necessity to Arthas’ plan and would have backed it.
But Arthas got a big head and tried to leverage a crisis to cement his power in Lordaeron. That was what Arthas messed up, and that was what tipped him down a darker path.
He was right about Strarholme. He was wrong about Uther and Jaina.
Oh my god I still play Warcraft frozen throne to this day
Glad you could make it, Vaush.
Cool next analyze the moral ambiguity Link's awakening.
The shit Arthas did to Sylvanas was enough to earn a place in warcraft’s Super Hell (Tm), let alone the things he did to the people closest to him in life.
and furthermore none of those actions against her could be blamed on the Lich or the Jailer
the lich and the Jailer are not interested in tormenting people unless it serves a purpose, the lich is indiscriminate and apathetic to personal feud, simply using the plague to create more undead legions for it to lead
and the jailer doesn't care about individuals and or personal vendetta as long as his over-arching goal/master plan unfolds
therefore there was no reason that either of them would have “Influenced” Arthas to do what he did to Sylvannis
“After all the trouble you put me through woman, the last thing i will give you is the peace of death”
Arthas didn’t just steal Sylvannis’s soul with frostmourne, he didn’t just raise her into the undead/banshee, he made sure she had her mental faculties and mind intact, something that was not usual for the undead at the time (before the fallen) and something that neither the lich nor the jailer would care about, they just want dead fodder to help them and their plans.
Arthas chose to allow Sylvannis her mind, so that he could force her to watch him destroy the rest of her people, and then he kept her locked in a coffin and tortured her and took his frustrations and sadism out on her simply because she caused him such distress
that cannot be put on the Lich or the Jailer, that was Arthas and his true nature revealed.
@@mckenzie.latham91You are 100 percent wrong about that. Arthas was gone when he took up Frosmourne. It was Nerzhul(The Jailer) who controls him. And Yes the elves serve the Jailer's purpose to revive Kelthuzad.
@kendivedmakarig215 What I stated was not only going by the official novelization of Wrath of the Lich King
But also directly from the mouth of the story director at the time who literally said as much in an interview, that Arthas was never controlled and that the reason is they felt it would weaken his character if all he had done was someone else's choice and not his
Then he is no longer a tragic character but a punk.
Back to the wage cage.. the "plague" cage.. whip out those rocket boots and figurines
Warcraft 3 did a Darth Vader prequel better than the Star Wars ones. Arthas was totally right. However, his arrogance was still being manipulated. The dread lord's goal was to divide the kingdom and also set Arthas down a path of the cold murderous leader he becomes. What better way to do that than to force his hand to kill the subjects he's sworn to protect that also causes a schism between him and Uther. Uther's arrogance is also being exploited, in that he thinks that the paladins can just fix everything without any hard choices or terrible sacrifice.
Except Arthas showed many times before Stratholme that he had no issue with bloody massacre or bloodlust which often alarmed the people around him for how quick he was to use brutality as a solution when a Paladin is supposed to be above such vitriol responses
Again Arthas’s first response to the plague infecting the city was to order everyone (even those who may not have been infected, or who could still survive) to be mass slaughtered, ignoring Uther and Jaina’s concerns and council and even using his position as prince to try and force obedience…
and this wasn’t the first time he showed frustration at having to be reigned in by others.
The problem was that Arthas showed no hesitancy or remorse or even guilt, even if it was the right action, at least Uther, Jaina and others had the right level of horror at the concept, arthas didn't
the only sign that he was broken or hurt by it comes from books/novelizations and or writer retcon after the fact, in the game and cutscenes he shows no issue and problem with his decision,
Again while the circumstances are being manipulated, it’s the characters who choose to make their own actions and decisions
furthermore i would argue that Arthas did not care about his people, he simply wanted to protect the kingdom he would inherit
The biggest sign that Arthas cared less about his people and more about the kingdom he thought has rightfully his to be his domain (and thus didn’t like other forces taking it from him)
is when he refused alongside Terranis to take their survivors and people/armies to Calamdore to fight the burning the legion itself, who was behind Mal’Gannis and everything that had befallen them.
Instead Arthas and Terranis refuse out of pride, and it’s Jaina who takes the survivors there and is the one actually trying to save/thinking of the people.
Rather than face the entire burning legion, Arthas goes after Mal’Gannis becasue of pride, because it’s Mal’ganns whose hurt his pride
he picked up Frostmourne not for his people but for power, becasue he knew he could use it to kill mal’gannis, which was his main goal/desire.
It's nice to listen to Vaush talk about gaming stuff from time to time.
"the Culling of Stratholme" is a bit different, lore wise.
The Infinite Dragonflight are trying to meddle with the timeline and completely alter the course of the future by killing Arthas and stopping him from culling Stratholme. Their reasoning is, if he never called Stratholme, he would've never progressed to Icecrown in his thirst for revenge for Mal'Ganis, and become the lich king.
Your goal as a party was to stop the infinite Dragonflight and help Arthas, in the past, survive to the present.
i think the point of it wasnt that he was morally wrong the point was that the way in which he responded to the situation emotionally. Instead of feeling deep regret for all the lives lost even though there was nothing anyone could have done he is consumed by his revenge he turned cold on the inside in that moment even if it was necessary he did turn off all his empathy with the problem being he never turned it back on again
Yeah, in the Stratholme mission there is no one to save. Everyone is dead.
It's like people who get blasted by radioactivity. They are going to die, just depends on if they die while still feeling okay, or days or weeks of excruciating misery.
Hey a zombie plague is no joke. A pragmatic and ruthless approach but ultimately mostly correct.
uther didn't say he outranked the crowned prince, he said he outranks him as a paladin, which they both are. that's the entire reason he can dismiss arthur and uther just goes along with it.
It's like of a prince is in the army as a captain, and he argues with a general. the general has rights over the prince since he's of a higher rank, but the captain has certain powers over the general as a prince.
15:00, yeah it's almost like next thing after the cull was Arthas losing his shit and chasing him to Northrend.
glad you could Bake it Uther.
Aw man I hate how Uther and Jaina just abandoned Arthas in his darkest hour.
Genuinely love this game, I’ve been playing it for 10+ years and I taught myself how to play it when I didn’t even know English, glad Vaush is talking about it it has a place in my heart.
14:19 the previous mission, you as Arthas' party found and destroyed the caravans distributing the tainted grain and killed the necromancer responsible for doing it, sadly, it was too late for Stratholme
That's not weird. Prince Harry was a soldier of lower rank then superiors jn the military. He said don't forget as a paladin I'm your superior. As in the army. Paladin is
I remember seeing this book online... It's basically a book that tries to apply philosophical concepts to World of Warcraft... I guess it's this one: "World of Warcraft and Philosophy: The Wrath of the Philosopher King" from 2009...
Interesting idea for a book, don't have it but may get it eventually since I like both WoW and philosophy (or maybe 'liked' WoW)... Would be neat if they did another one discussing Sylvanas and the whole split personality thing and free will the topic of free will... Just because we all know that Blizzard is stupid about that... She had no freedom or responsibility after she died...
Even after playing Warcraft 3 in full and a very brief stint in WOW, I fucking hate the names in this series. I _know_ all the characters being mentioned in this video, I just never associate any names besides Arthas and a few others that are simple enough, the rest is word soup. Turalyon and Gavinrad were opposed to Mal'Ganis, Clegg'Holdfast and Taight'Bussi.
"Clegg'Holdfast"
I see someone has played star wars episode 1 racer here.
One of the things that always bothered me is that the response that usually people give out is that he really should’ve just left instead of purging the city.
Like seriously where are you going to run to? Also, they completely forget that paladins are obligated to protect the week and do their best to prevent any world ending threat.
I always thought about it as a neutral vs good. Not evil vs good choice.
As Vaush said, the people are doomed. But now you have the choice: you can make the situation worse but keep the high ground as the loyal good paladin... Or, do the purge, being practical and cold blooded.
It's not an evil act but it's the moment Arthas stoped being a paladin. (at least moraly)
The designer said he was supposed to just run.....
4:20 no...Vaush, he outranks him as a paladin.
He banishes Uther shortly after so it's not like Uther is saying he is his superior in a hierarchy.
Thinking about it now, what bothers me is janina and uther's reactions to the culling. Their solution was literally let's think of something better 5head whilst malganis was literally like a few minutes away from converting the city. What better solution could you have found there? And if you did just stay and debate it with arthas. But no, bot only did they refuse to participate but they further fucked arthas mentally leading to his slow but certain decline. Man WC3 has a cool story
Vaush commits APOLOGIA for the Lich King's slaughter of Stratholme
Idgaf how deep I am in Elden Ring, this is exactly the kind of Vaush Pit content I’m looking for rn
Oh, but Vaush, you are missing the cutscene AFTER this event that show uninfected citizens going through the carnage. The Culling is suppose to make you feel justified in your actions, just like Arthas. But afterward you are shown this cutscene of people who survived the ordeal, thus there were innocent people that could have been saved, but due to the all or nothing method Arthas had adopted, they died as well.
Because of the destruction of Stratholme, the land around it and the city itself become completely consumed by the undead. There is no saving Stratholme, there is no way for it to not be undead. Arthas may have done the right thing within the moment, but the consequences latter on blighted the land and turned the entire region that Stratholme is into the hands of the undead for probably all time. That's the thing with doing the right thing within the moment, sometimes the consequences will never agree with you regardless of your justification. Had Arthas not done what he did, the land would not have been blighted, the city might have been saved and Blood Elves would not exist. Why? Because your forces are bolstered from the undead at Stratholme as you march on the High Elves land to poison their source of magic.
Shhhh. He did the Caverns of Time dungeon a couple times in LFG so he's got this lore thing on lock.
Yes, and game mechanics aren't always lore.
@@Fangs1978 He's describing a cutscene of a story on what exactly happened that we're not directly shown. Unless you mean Vaush made this mistake in which case, yeah... that's another reason why his analysis fell flat.
@@voiceofreason467 I was talking about the fact that all the people in the houses turn when the houses are destroyed during the actual mission which Vaush used to bolster his argument that they were all infected. If I'm talking about game mechanics then I'm obviously not talking about the cut scene, but I'll admit I wasn't very clear. As far as game play goes they could all just be infected to make the mission harder or make it easier on the player by not making them kill innocent villagers. We all saw how much people freaked out over the torture scene in GTA5 years later. People generally don't like being forced to to do horrible things.
I can see Vaush's perspective though it would make the point better if not all the people turned.
This is the Vawush content we want!
it would be pretty awesome if vaush spent a few hours explaining warcraft lore
It's not that paladins outrank princes. It's that they are both paladins and Uthar is a higher rank paladin. It's like when British princes join the air force or navie they still have to follow chain if command. In the field.