This cinematic that plays after the Anduin fight giving a final farewell to such an important character as Arthas was garbage at best, and a downright insulting travesty to both fans and the character at worse. I get that the Jailer used Arthas’ soul as the thing that powered the Mourneblade or whatever it’s called. The current storytellers of this more than decade’s old game, of which Arthas was such an important character to the series, could have gone so many ways. They could have finally given Arthas the last goodbye that we as fans craved. The last time he gets a chance to speak to his mentor, Uther. The last time he gets to say his goodbyes to the love of his life, Jaina. Even maybe an apology to Sylvanis for what he did to her–none that happened. Instead, the devs (which we should have seen coming) decided (in their infinite lazy, horrific writing talent) decided to have Arthas as an orb of energy, while Sylvanis (who apparently this whole expansion was about in many ways) say her remorseful goodbyes, wishing the memory of his past deeds to fade and be forgotten, as this orb that supposed to represent Arthas does the same. SMH. Patch 9.2 could have been a chance for the devs of WoW to upright the ship and steer it in a more positive direction, but instead, they decided to go with the status quo of crapulence. Very sad for a game that I still hold out a sliver of hope (albeit a very small one) that this series will turn itself around., but it’s becoming very clear to me that if the devs don’t care, why should I care.
About Arthas’ slaughter of Stratholme…
The thing is did Arthas really save people from the plague, or was he just bolstering what would eventually become his own forces?
Arthas killing all those people in Stratholme didn’t really end the plague, but what it did do was create more undead. Arthas, through his actions in Stratholme, started down the path to becoming the Lich King–the leader of the undead scourge. The same scourge for which the plague was made in the first place.
Now, when he killed all those people because some of them were infected, it didn’t stop the plague in its tracks, but what it sure as hell did was create more bodies for the Lich King to raise into his undead army, thereby at the end of the day continuing the plague in its completed form, because the purpose of the plague was to create the undead Scourge that would mindlessly follow the Lich King’s every word, as they spread across the world of Azeroth from the living, much like a plague. So when Arthas killed all those people, all he did at the end of the day was to help spread the plague of Scourge even further. That’s why Mal’Ganis laughed at Arthas as he left Stratholme because he could already see the path that Arthas was taking would lead him to become the Lich King, and that his wholesale slaughter of Stratholme did nothing but aided the Scourge in the end, instead of stopping it.
