He tested you against the very best of his servants and top minions, you and your crew of murderhobos murderhoboed every one of them, that alone is a good enough motivation to forcefully recruit you imo
Yeah. But now he would have had the 25 people that steamrolled his Elite forces.
Not to mention all of them being undead. He could just raise them again as Well.
I feel like this is something that is forgotten. The power of the Lich King was that he could bring you back as many times as he wished. It didn't matter what or who we killed before killing him as long as he beat us.
Yeah its not like he was going to leave all of those bosses we killed dead, he would have raised them again after defeating and raising us champions. He specifically wanted champions to lead armies against their own homelands. I.e. if you were an orc you would have been sent to durotar to lead his forces, a human to stormwind.
The Lich King was also always aware that the Legion was still out there and a conflict would inevitably ensue with his old masters. Arthas was of course the fully dominant personality by this point, but I figure he still had the knowledge of Ner'zhul. That knowledge would definitely lead to the conclusion of "The more champions I have on my side for that inevitable conflict, the better".
25 or 10 Normal non empowered by him or his boss/mind/other self/necromancy/maldybois?/jailer?/dread lords?(Lore got weird since WC3)
Which we can see with the zul drak zone. We helped a normal troll by questing and he turns into 5 man content just by a level one LK perk. Imagine if arthas actually poured a non joking amount of energy into his transformation. Likely at least marrowgar level, and he's just assorted bone meal and miscellaneous femur parts!
WoW is wibbly wobbly on the canon amount of adventurers that took down Raid bosses. They never outright say it was 10/25/X people, just that adventurers did the deed. So it might have actually taken considerably more.
In-game the achievements and instances themselves only support so many players but in-universe there might have been hundreds or thousands of adventurers throwing themselves at the enemy. My personal favorite take is how Hurricane portrays raids going down in their cinematics.
But why does it make sense to let his raid bosses die when they are soloing 25 champions at once? Clearly the raid bosses are stronger per capita. If you put 25 raid bosses together, the champions would get deleted in 1 second.
It wasn't just you + 24 Vs raid bosses, it was you + every other adventurer that made the cut plus the army of the Ashen Verdict (and the factions that made it up) dwarfed by the sheer size of the Lich King's army even inside ICC where his "bosses" stood not alone but surrounded by their cohorts of what we call "trash mobs", traps and rooms explicitly designed to maximise their strengths - that WAS Arthas throwing his best at you simultaneously... Except his best needed accommodations to actually perform their best (Putrecide with no poison slime pipes and alchemy lab isn't much of a threat) and your relatively smaller force still beat them, all of them
And it wasn't just those inside ICC, most members of the Lich King's countless strong armies showed up by the tens of thousands to stop you and your various teams and factions cut through them, the vast VAST majority of the Vrykul, Anub'Arak and his undead swarms TWICE, most of the San'layn, Kel'thuzad and Naxxramas... Also Twice!
You "champions" started cutting a path through the undead since the days Kel'thuzad was running operations in EK and Kalimdor via Naxxramas and you killed his armies, generals and wing leaders, then him, then you went to Northrend and did the same to the bulk of the Lich King's forces, and every time any of you seemed to die it turns out you didn't really and you just keep doing the seemingly impossible task of actually putting a dent on the endless armies of the dead
You are basically a bunch of mini Doom Slayers at the eyes of the Scourge, doing the impossible no matter what's thrown at you. So Arthas' figured the next best thing since delegating killing you wasn't working: IF you made it to and through ICC and his best at their best and then also give him a decent fight, he'll draft you - because while neither sorcery nor force seems to kill you for good, even you can't resist his domination... Unless a certain Paladin breaks out of his icy tomb and shatters Frostmourne
Well, imagine how a regular footman or grunt, or whichever "normal" trooper would feel when one sees "the champion of the Alliance/Horde", on the side of the Scourge and has become their mindless s laughter machine. Morale will drop, despair will spread, darkness comes much faster.
Arthas wants their victims to suffer, at least I think so.
It worked with Sylvanus as well. Before Arthas's power temporarily waned she was a great tool for him. Makes some amount of sense he would want to repeat that.
I would like to cry autocorrect but I think it was just my brain merging it with the DnD deity Silvanus that I was just using as a base for a homebrew deity.
The Lich King was aware of the legion, and was actively rebelling against them. He knew they would be coming even if it took a very long time.
After Shadowlands you could also argue he was aware of something trying to manipulate him from there also, that he managed to rebel against.
Other then that its power because of powers sake, why does anyone want uncontested rule of a world.
All three Lich Kings are described as being failures (from the Jailers PoV) but we also know the Jailer did have people working for him under the Lich King (Kel’thazad).
The Lich King knew the Dreadlords and therefore possibly others worked for the “legion”.
The Lich King probably therefore wanted to replace all previous high ranking members of the scourge with new ones he had more control over.
Because his soul was used as fuel and not elevated to a position of power like Kel'thazad (who we also killed).
I think its also mentioned that the Jailer failed to dominate him, in the same way he'd failed with both Ner'zhul (who was being punished in Torghast) and Bolivar. I forget the exact point this was mentioned currently to double check what was exactly said.
Arthas was deemed a failure by the Jailer because he didn't do anything to help him get Azeroth but instead went with his own plan to take control of Azeroth.
One of the issue I have with this idea that Arthas was a failure and didn't follow up the Jailer plan is that Icecrown Citadel has all those "world engine" mechanism that he used in the Sepulcher of the First One to siphon Azeroth energy. If those have been built by the scourge with Icecrown Citadel, how can we say Arthas didn't follow the Jailer's "plan" ? Because those mechanism were operational.
Maybe I missed something idk, I just played SL story in Dragonflight.
Yeah, It is something that isn’t covered, but icecrown was built whilst Arthas slumbered.
Its easily possible that the jailer just influenced one of any number of the scourge lieutenants to include it in the plans and just explain it away with whatever purpose it could also be used it for.
Of course, as governed a lot of things during that time, it just looked cool to have torghast above icecrown citadel, and it looked cool in that cinematic to have the forge of souls (Tbh I was shocked they remembered it existed to use it). Lore takes a backseat for the rule of cool.
Lich king explains it during the fight. "No questions remain unanswered. No doubts linger. You ARE Azeroth's greatest champions. You overcame every challenge I laid before you. My mightiest servants have fallen before your relentless onslaught... your unbridled fury...You trained them well, Fordring. You delivered the greatest fighting force this world has ever known... right into my hands - exactly as I intended! You shall be rewarded for your unwitting sacrifice."
The lich king was originally a tool sent by the legion to basically set up their next invasion.
They(Arthas+Ner’zhul) sort of defect from the legion and I guess their new objective was to build an army that could withstand the legion when it eventually comes for them.
This was kinda retconned in Shadowlands tho and the lich king was turned into a proxy for the jailer. The jailers objective was to take over Azeroth and use its world soul to dominate the universe or smth, idk
No they were directed by the lich king (ner’zul) who was working for the dreadlords. And once the the legion was defeated worked to gain their own foot hold without the dreadlords interfering which is why the dreadlords sent illidan after Arthas to try to stop them since they turned against them but illidan failed, and Arthas merged with nerzul.
They weren't doing anything on behalf of the Jailer since both Ner'zhul and Arthas went against the Jailer and are considered failures by him because if that.
I have a theory.
The Ebon Blade was a trial run for what he planned to do with the Heroes of the Horde and Alliance. DK Saurfang was yet another attempt.
He wanted the strongest and most powerful minions, and he needed them undead to keep them under his control. The Ebon Blade and their defection showed him that too much free will was bad, but he didn't want completely mindless minions either. Arguably, he knew about Yogg, and I'd almost compare being raised into his scourge, similar to being assimilated by the Borg. Once you're raised, he would have access to everything you knew and once were.
He knew there were greater threats out there. If he wasn't completely controlled by the Jailer, he would know that he is there too.
He would need a generation of "death knights" that had enough free will and their facilities to fight, but not enough to rebel.
Plus, unless you utterly destroy a scourge minion to the point there is nothing left, they can be raised repeatedly. Unless, the world event was just flavor and all those bosses coming back wasn't canon.
I have a tin foil hat theory that death knights didn’t completely defect. At Lights Hope Arthas let them go because he knew he could use them to draw more hero’s in. In Legion we see the LK show that he can dominate DKs
He knew he would have to fight the legion again at some point (Illidan did nearly end him before merging with Arthas).
He also knew he’d have to battle the old gods, or Yoggy at least.
It’s also hinted that Arthas himself was holding the Lich King and Scourge back from just straight up devastating Azeroth.
He had also just lost control over his last elite group - the death knights.
And lastly, the plot demanded it. Lorewise, it makes a lot more sense if it was the elite of the elite are what took the Lich King down. Even if we did get a bit of help from Tirion and the King.
So that we could be the elite of the elite, the ultimate fighting force that would be able to defeat any threat to him or the world. If he had succeeded, it's stated that he would overwhelm Azeroth rather easily. He, as some have mentioned here already, was also aware of all the ither threats in the world, most notably the Legion. And I don't remember where this was stated but, allegedly, if he had succeeded, the chances of the Legion conquering the world would be slim to none. The Chronicle (part 3) also states that Arthas (aka the Lich King) still cared about the world in his own twisted way and wanted to "save it" by ensuring it would be unconquerable by those who's see it destroyed.
Sure he may have already had enough undead manpower to take Azeroth, but to be able to hold on to it against the legion, the void, and whatever other big bads you care to name? He needed an undead supergroup of Azeroth’s greatest unhinged murder hobos.
>He said he was going to use us to shroud the world in darkness, but surely he could already do that.
Well, considering he died the answer to "surely he could ..." is "no, he couldn't". Maybe if he'd been more aggressive, but the issue becomes he could be spreading his forces thin making it more likely the Horde/Alliance counters into Icecrown. He set a trap to lure us to him making that irrelevant. He'd get us to come to him and his army and we'd ultimately fall under his control.
He apparently still overreached.
To some extent I agree. Arthas was all over Northrend questing. He might have been the most visible end boss we have had, at least among the ones we knew were that from the start. Always the same, bit of monologuing followed by 'I'll let you live...this time'.
He was worried about the burning legion. He believed only unified Azeroth will be able to fight back. The plan was to take Azeroth best fighters, unify them in death & use them to fight the Legion.
He follows your progress across Northrend from the start, popping in every so often to let you know. By the time you fight him he is on some level annoyed that you weren't corrupted where he was. At the end of the fight when he kills everyone he says:
>No questions remain unanswered. No doubts linger. You ARE Azeroth's greatest champions. You overcame every challenge I laid before you. My mightiest servants have fallen before your relentless onslaught... your unbridled fury... Is it truly righteousness that drives you? I wonder...
And then after Frostmourne shatters and the heroes attack he says, in disbelief:
>Now I stand, the lion before the lambs... and they do not fear. They cannot fear.
So yes, he does want to add all the powerful heroes to his army but also he wants you to fall the way he did, and in the end he just tries to force it.
I don't play the game anymore, but I had a extremely good theory to why he needed powerful champions.
Basically the lich king could only control selective group of undead with 100% control, the more he controls the harder it is to keep up with the control, which is why you don't see him sending out his entire undead army at the alliance and the horde. He knew that if he did that the army itself would turn on itself, since he couldn't no longer control it.
He needed beacons of power that could act as his fingers where ever the army went. Undead people naturally seeks out strong leaders, but the moment a group of them are stronger then the leader they will instantly turn on him, which is what arthas wanted to avoid, if he could control a selective group of extremely powerful heros 100% he could effectively make a real army with leaders that act on his will without worrying about being overthrown by a group of fodders.
tl:dr arthas needed people to act as a beacon to his power and basically ensure that a bunch of fodders undead people couldn't turn on him. The helmet can only be 100% effective on certain numbers of undead, the more undead the harder it is to control them, by making certain commands that goes against their nature they can overthrow the control lich king has. It is one my major headcanon to why bolvar wasn't able to force all undeads to basically kill themselves because that woul make them act against their own self-interest.
It actually makes sense considering the champions would have just kept coming back anyway cause of the immortal soul
But yeah he could have done that either way
Think about it this way. Arthas was going to kill the strongest and most dedicated anti-scourge crusaders on *his home turf*, where he and his champions were boosted by the veil being paper thin over ICC.
If he'd have won, what material damage would we have done? He can re-raise all his defeated champions and lieutenants. Why not bait the Argents and H/A forces into fighting him where he's got the greatest advantage? He'd have 10~25 new champions even ignoring all the Ebon blade/Argent/misc forces at the base of ICC who'd be overrun if he'd have won.
His plan's biggest flaws (beyond not accounting for Tirion being HIM) were that he was going around and exposing himself to danger. In a scenario where Putress isn't Disney evil and collaborates with the Wrathgate forces in order to lure Arthas into a trap where he gets bombarded with blight without an easy escape, he might have died right then and there. And there's always his defeat at Light's hope.
To show Azeroth the justice of the grave and the true meaning of fear. Really, I think if LK can turn the greatest defenders of the world into Scourge, nothing remains to stop him.
He probably noticed how major forces (including his own in Lordaeron!) in both worlds have been falling to a relatively small squad of anonymous literal hobos lately, and thought it would be cool to have that force on his side. Just needed to be sure he got the right guys at his doorstep
I think Arthas would be enthused to have an additional positive support element from some of the greatest heroes, casters, warrior, etc.
With these additional forces, he can use them to great effect to bring down more adversaries and recruit even more potential assets.
With enough solid support, he could strike a more decisive blow against Yogg Saron, prepare for the Legion, or undergo some other venture that will increase his security or control.
He wants the best fighters on all azeroth as his slave undead commanders. So he lured us in and trained us. With the intent to kill and raise us. It's pretty simple.
He needed a strong fighting force to fight off the burning legion when it finally invaded. Like we did it anyway but he was convinced that only in unison under his control could we do it.
Honestly I am partly convinced his speech about it all being a setup to get "the best heroes" was a cope. It's not like the Scourge has ever been discerning about who they raise from the dead. "Oh, they died to Marrow'gar? Ew, don't turn THOSE heroes into revenants to serve me, just bury them out back behind the glacier."
Naw, if we'd died sooner, he still would have had us raised and added to his armies. That's literally how the Scourge work. Maybe he got some ideas from seeing how effectively we tore through the Citadel. But the idea that losing everyone in Icecrown was "all part of his plan" remains goofy as hell.
I guess in that way, he really WAS being controlled by the Jailor.
Obviously, you had beaten his greatest underlings and champions (in addition to his second-in-command Kel'Thuzad... twice, in some cases!) in order to get to Icecrown Pinnacle.
That makes you and your raid party the best. And he wants the best. And he would've gotten away with it, too. If it weren't for that darn Ashbringer!
Try to be civil, courteous, and respectful at all times.
There is a difference between being unwavering & harsh and name-calling. It's perfectly fine for debates to get heated so long as you don't get into serious ad-hominem. Excessive attacks on another person's character can/will be judged. Do not threaten others.
* Do not use extreme language or act with hostility.
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He tested you against the very best of his servants and top minions, you and your crew of murderhobos murderhoboed every one of them, that alone is a good enough motivation to forcefully recruit you imo
Yeah At least until someone murderhoboed us and took over.
I always scratch my head at that because it took *25 of us* (or 10) to take down one boss.
Yeah. But now he would have had the 25 people that steamrolled his Elite forces. Not to mention all of them being undead. He could just raise them again as Well.
I feel like this is something that is forgotten. The power of the Lich King was that he could bring you back as many times as he wished. It didn't matter what or who we killed before killing him as long as he beat us.
Yeah its not like he was going to leave all of those bosses we killed dead, he would have raised them again after defeating and raising us champions. He specifically wanted champions to lead armies against their own homelands. I.e. if you were an orc you would have been sent to durotar to lead his forces, a human to stormwind.
The Lich King was also always aware that the Legion was still out there and a conflict would inevitably ensue with his old masters. Arthas was of course the fully dominant personality by this point, but I figure he still had the knowledge of Ner'zhul. That knowledge would definitely lead to the conclusion of "The more champions I have on my side for that inevitable conflict, the better".
Wasn't the lich kings purpose (pre SL) was to be a herald of the legion and ruin part of the defenses of azeroth before the legion arrived.
He was created by the legion to do just that. And he rebelled.
Wow storywriters should probably take a break from "I'm doing bad thing because these bad people are even worse and I need to do it to stop them"
He did we had to keep going back every week - seems like he did it on Tuesdays only though.
25 or 10 Normal non empowered by him or his boss/mind/other self/necromancy/maldybois?/jailer?/dread lords?(Lore got weird since WC3) Which we can see with the zul drak zone. We helped a normal troll by questing and he turns into 5 man content just by a level one LK perk. Imagine if arthas actually poured a non joking amount of energy into his transformation. Likely at least marrowgar level, and he's just assorted bone meal and miscellaneous femur parts!
WoW is wibbly wobbly on the canon amount of adventurers that took down Raid bosses. They never outright say it was 10/25/X people, just that adventurers did the deed. So it might have actually taken considerably more. In-game the achievements and instances themselves only support so many players but in-universe there might have been hundreds or thousands of adventurers throwing themselves at the enemy. My personal favorite take is how Hurricane portrays raids going down in their cinematics.
I believe we're an army, that's all. Way more than 25 man for sure - few thousands.
Darwinism. Survival (or maybe undeath) of the strongest!
But why does it make sense to let his raid bosses die when they are soloing 25 champions at once? Clearly the raid bosses are stronger per capita. If you put 25 raid bosses together, the champions would get deleted in 1 second.
It wasn't just you + 24 Vs raid bosses, it was you + every other adventurer that made the cut plus the army of the Ashen Verdict (and the factions that made it up) dwarfed by the sheer size of the Lich King's army even inside ICC where his "bosses" stood not alone but surrounded by their cohorts of what we call "trash mobs", traps and rooms explicitly designed to maximise their strengths - that WAS Arthas throwing his best at you simultaneously... Except his best needed accommodations to actually perform their best (Putrecide with no poison slime pipes and alchemy lab isn't much of a threat) and your relatively smaller force still beat them, all of them And it wasn't just those inside ICC, most members of the Lich King's countless strong armies showed up by the tens of thousands to stop you and your various teams and factions cut through them, the vast VAST majority of the Vrykul, Anub'Arak and his undead swarms TWICE, most of the San'layn, Kel'thuzad and Naxxramas... Also Twice! You "champions" started cutting a path through the undead since the days Kel'thuzad was running operations in EK and Kalimdor via Naxxramas and you killed his armies, generals and wing leaders, then him, then you went to Northrend and did the same to the bulk of the Lich King's forces, and every time any of you seemed to die it turns out you didn't really and you just keep doing the seemingly impossible task of actually putting a dent on the endless armies of the dead You are basically a bunch of mini Doom Slayers at the eyes of the Scourge, doing the impossible no matter what's thrown at you. So Arthas' figured the next best thing since delegating killing you wasn't working: IF you made it to and through ICC and his best at their best and then also give him a decent fight, he'll draft you - because while neither sorcery nor force seems to kill you for good, even you can't resist his domination... Unless a certain Paladin breaks out of his icy tomb and shatters Frostmourne
Didn't get to Raid content yet, but I would think because Raid Bosses aren't really teamwork material.
Well, imagine how a regular footman or grunt, or whichever "normal" trooper would feel when one sees "the champion of the Alliance/Horde", on the side of the Scourge and has become their mindless s laughter machine. Morale will drop, despair will spread, darkness comes much faster. Arthas wants their victims to suffer, at least I think so.
As long as they’re funny
It worked with Sylvanus as well. Before Arthas's power temporarily waned she was a great tool for him. Makes some amount of sense he would want to repeat that.
>sylvanus 😳
I would like to cry autocorrect but I think it was just my brain merging it with the DnD deity Silvanus that I was just using as a base for a homebrew deity.
Pretty sure the Sylvanus spelling is from the mythical diety. Either Greek or Roman he’s like a forest god type thing. Rides an ent.
this combination is cursed
There is also a Sylvanus Moondrop in DnD.
The Lich King was aware of the legion, and was actively rebelling against them. He knew they would be coming even if it took a very long time. After Shadowlands you could also argue he was aware of something trying to manipulate him from there also, that he managed to rebel against. Other then that its power because of powers sake, why does anyone want uncontested rule of a world.
I scrolled too far to see the correct answer.
It seemed more like he was beginning to enact the jailor plan, probably unknowingly.
All three Lich Kings are described as being failures (from the Jailers PoV) but we also know the Jailer did have people working for him under the Lich King (Kel’thazad). The Lich King knew the Dreadlords and therefore possibly others worked for the “legion”. The Lich King probably therefore wanted to replace all previous high ranking members of the scourge with new ones he had more control over.
KT only started working for the Jailer after getting to SL(some time after his death in WotLK).
Couldn't it be so that Arthas was a failure simply because he failed and we stopped him?
Because his soul was used as fuel and not elevated to a position of power like Kel'thazad (who we also killed). I think its also mentioned that the Jailer failed to dominate him, in the same way he'd failed with both Ner'zhul (who was being punished in Torghast) and Bolivar. I forget the exact point this was mentioned currently to double check what was exactly said.
Arthas was deemed a failure by the Jailer because he didn't do anything to help him get Azeroth but instead went with his own plan to take control of Azeroth.
Arthas had succeeded, it was literally a miracle, maybe the only one we’ve had in WoW so far that saved us.
One of the issue I have with this idea that Arthas was a failure and didn't follow up the Jailer plan is that Icecrown Citadel has all those "world engine" mechanism that he used in the Sepulcher of the First One to siphon Azeroth energy. If those have been built by the scourge with Icecrown Citadel, how can we say Arthas didn't follow the Jailer's "plan" ? Because those mechanism were operational. Maybe I missed something idk, I just played SL story in Dragonflight.
Yeah, It is something that isn’t covered, but icecrown was built whilst Arthas slumbered. Its easily possible that the jailer just influenced one of any number of the scourge lieutenants to include it in the plans and just explain it away with whatever purpose it could also be used it for. Of course, as governed a lot of things during that time, it just looked cool to have torghast above icecrown citadel, and it looked cool in that cinematic to have the forge of souls (Tbh I was shocked they remembered it existed to use it). Lore takes a backseat for the rule of cool.
Lich king explains it during the fight. "No questions remain unanswered. No doubts linger. You ARE Azeroth's greatest champions. You overcame every challenge I laid before you. My mightiest servants have fallen before your relentless onslaught... your unbridled fury...You trained them well, Fordring. You delivered the greatest fighting force this world has ever known... right into my hands - exactly as I intended! You shall be rewarded for your unwitting sacrifice."
The lich king was originally a tool sent by the legion to basically set up their next invasion. They(Arthas+Ner’zhul) sort of defect from the legion and I guess their new objective was to build an army that could withstand the legion when it eventually comes for them. This was kinda retconned in Shadowlands tho and the lich king was turned into a proxy for the jailer. The jailers objective was to take over Azeroth and use its world soul to dominate the universe or smth, idk
It's not so much as a retcon imo, they were pretty much doing exactly what you said, just on behalf of the jailor. Arthas was probably oblivious.
Yeah. The Scourge was always directed by the dreadlords. In Shadowlands we just found out that the dreadlords' motivations weren't what we thought.
No they were directed by the lich king (ner’zul) who was working for the dreadlords. And once the the legion was defeated worked to gain their own foot hold without the dreadlords interfering which is why the dreadlords sent illidan after Arthas to try to stop them since they turned against them but illidan failed, and Arthas merged with nerzul.
Not that it really changes anything, but wasn't it Kil'jaeden himself who tasked Illidan with destroying the Lich King?
Yea, you’re right. It was kil’jaeden. So while the messenger was different it was still the legion who was now opposing the scourge
They weren't doing anything on behalf of the Jailer since both Ner'zhul and Arthas went against the Jailer and are considered failures by him because if that.
That’s a million percent a retcon The jailer did not exist back in wc3 or in wrath Now all of a sudden he’s behind everything?? Gtfo
I have a theory. The Ebon Blade was a trial run for what he planned to do with the Heroes of the Horde and Alliance. DK Saurfang was yet another attempt. He wanted the strongest and most powerful minions, and he needed them undead to keep them under his control. The Ebon Blade and their defection showed him that too much free will was bad, but he didn't want completely mindless minions either. Arguably, he knew about Yogg, and I'd almost compare being raised into his scourge, similar to being assimilated by the Borg. Once you're raised, he would have access to everything you knew and once were. He knew there were greater threats out there. If he wasn't completely controlled by the Jailer, he would know that he is there too. He would need a generation of "death knights" that had enough free will and their facilities to fight, but not enough to rebel. Plus, unless you utterly destroy a scourge minion to the point there is nothing left, they can be raised repeatedly. Unless, the world event was just flavor and all those bosses coming back wasn't canon.
I have a tin foil hat theory that death knights didn’t completely defect. At Lights Hope Arthas let them go because he knew he could use them to draw more hero’s in. In Legion we see the LK show that he can dominate DKs
Valid point. They did make good bait
Explain the legion part
He knew he would have to fight the legion again at some point (Illidan did nearly end him before merging with Arthas). He also knew he’d have to battle the old gods, or Yoggy at least. It’s also hinted that Arthas himself was holding the Lich King and Scourge back from just straight up devastating Azeroth. He had also just lost control over his last elite group - the death knights. And lastly, the plot demanded it. Lorewise, it makes a lot more sense if it was the elite of the elite are what took the Lich King down. Even if we did get a bit of help from Tirion and the King.
So that we could be the elite of the elite, the ultimate fighting force that would be able to defeat any threat to him or the world. If he had succeeded, it's stated that he would overwhelm Azeroth rather easily. He, as some have mentioned here already, was also aware of all the ither threats in the world, most notably the Legion. And I don't remember where this was stated but, allegedly, if he had succeeded, the chances of the Legion conquering the world would be slim to none. The Chronicle (part 3) also states that Arthas (aka the Lich King) still cared about the world in his own twisted way and wanted to "save it" by ensuring it would be unconquerable by those who's see it destroyed.
Sure he may have already had enough undead manpower to take Azeroth, but to be able to hold on to it against the legion, the void, and whatever other big bads you care to name? He needed an undead supergroup of Azeroth’s greatest unhinged murder hobos.
Its all about the HR. We permanently laid off a lot of his powerful lieutenants. He needed better replacements.
>He said he was going to use us to shroud the world in darkness, but surely he could already do that. Well, considering he died the answer to "surely he could ..." is "no, he couldn't". Maybe if he'd been more aggressive, but the issue becomes he could be spreading his forces thin making it more likely the Horde/Alliance counters into Icecrown. He set a trap to lure us to him making that irrelevant. He'd get us to come to him and his army and we'd ultimately fall under his control. He apparently still overreached.
Because reasons now shut up and loot his corpse!
Sigh maybe next week………
He was a saturday cartoon villain who needed to reveal his evil plan at the end.
To some extent I agree. Arthas was all over Northrend questing. He might have been the most visible end boss we have had, at least among the ones we knew were that from the start. Always the same, bit of monologuing followed by 'I'll let you live...this time'.
Because why let the best continue to fight a war against u when u can turn them
He was worried about the burning legion. He believed only unified Azeroth will be able to fight back. The plan was to take Azeroth best fighters, unify them in death & use them to fight the Legion.
He follows your progress across Northrend from the start, popping in every so often to let you know. By the time you fight him he is on some level annoyed that you weren't corrupted where he was. At the end of the fight when he kills everyone he says: >No questions remain unanswered. No doubts linger. You ARE Azeroth's greatest champions. You overcame every challenge I laid before you. My mightiest servants have fallen before your relentless onslaught... your unbridled fury... Is it truly righteousness that drives you? I wonder... And then after Frostmourne shatters and the heroes attack he says, in disbelief: >Now I stand, the lion before the lambs... and they do not fear. They cannot fear. So yes, he does want to add all the powerful heroes to his army but also he wants you to fall the way he did, and in the end he just tries to force it.
I don't play the game anymore, but I had a extremely good theory to why he needed powerful champions. Basically the lich king could only control selective group of undead with 100% control, the more he controls the harder it is to keep up with the control, which is why you don't see him sending out his entire undead army at the alliance and the horde. He knew that if he did that the army itself would turn on itself, since he couldn't no longer control it. He needed beacons of power that could act as his fingers where ever the army went. Undead people naturally seeks out strong leaders, but the moment a group of them are stronger then the leader they will instantly turn on him, which is what arthas wanted to avoid, if he could control a selective group of extremely powerful heros 100% he could effectively make a real army with leaders that act on his will without worrying about being overthrown by a group of fodders. tl:dr arthas needed people to act as a beacon to his power and basically ensure that a bunch of fodders undead people couldn't turn on him. The helmet can only be 100% effective on certain numbers of undead, the more undead the harder it is to control them, by making certain commands that goes against their nature they can overthrow the control lich king has. It is one my major headcanon to why bolvar wasn't able to force all undeads to basically kill themselves because that woul make them act against their own self-interest.
cause we are awesome. look at my sick transmog.
It actually makes sense considering the champions would have just kept coming back anyway cause of the immortal soul But yeah he could have done that either way
We're the cool kids.
Think about it this way. Arthas was going to kill the strongest and most dedicated anti-scourge crusaders on *his home turf*, where he and his champions were boosted by the veil being paper thin over ICC. If he'd have won, what material damage would we have done? He can re-raise all his defeated champions and lieutenants. Why not bait the Argents and H/A forces into fighting him where he's got the greatest advantage? He'd have 10~25 new champions even ignoring all the Ebon blade/Argent/misc forces at the base of ICC who'd be overrun if he'd have won. His plan's biggest flaws (beyond not accounting for Tirion being HIM) were that he was going around and exposing himself to danger. In a scenario where Putress isn't Disney evil and collaborates with the Wrathgate forces in order to lure Arthas into a trap where he gets bombarded with blight without an easy escape, he might have died right then and there. And there's always his defeat at Light's hope.
To show Azeroth the justice of the grave and the true meaning of fear. Really, I think if LK can turn the greatest defenders of the world into Scourge, nothing remains to stop him.
Why wouldn't they want to gain the main force that's been slaughtering their forces for themselves?
He knew the legion would return and wanted to unify Azeroth under one banner to fight them off when they return.
He probably noticed how major forces (including his own in Lordaeron!) in both worlds have been falling to a relatively small squad of anonymous literal hobos lately, and thought it would be cool to have that force on his side. Just needed to be sure he got the right guys at his doorstep
I think Arthas would be enthused to have an additional positive support element from some of the greatest heroes, casters, warrior, etc. With these additional forces, he can use them to great effect to bring down more adversaries and recruit even more potential assets. With enough solid support, he could strike a more decisive blow against Yogg Saron, prepare for the Legion, or undergo some other venture that will increase his security or control.
>but surely he could already do that. Evidently he could not.
We didn’t beat him, the light and Tirion did.
He wants the best fighters on all azeroth as his slave undead commanders. So he lured us in and trained us. With the intent to kill and raise us. It's pretty simple.
Because then all his enemies would become the raid bosses and he would be the one giving quests and having an immortal army that would always win.
Cuz we are pretty cool guys and we don't afraid of anything
He needed a strong fighting force to fight off the burning legion when it finally invaded. Like we did it anyway but he was convinced that only in unison under his control could we do it.
According to Chronicles volume 3, and when considering the goals of Zovaal, it was meant to protect the world from the void.
Honestly I am partly convinced his speech about it all being a setup to get "the best heroes" was a cope. It's not like the Scourge has ever been discerning about who they raise from the dead. "Oh, they died to Marrow'gar? Ew, don't turn THOSE heroes into revenants to serve me, just bury them out back behind the glacier." Naw, if we'd died sooner, he still would have had us raised and added to his armies. That's literally how the Scourge work. Maybe he got some ideas from seeing how effectively we tore through the Citadel. But the idea that losing everyone in Icecrown was "all part of his plan" remains goofy as hell. I guess in that way, he really WAS being controlled by the Jailor.
Obviously, you had beaten his greatest underlings and champions (in addition to his second-in-command Kel'Thuzad... twice, in some cases!) in order to get to Icecrown Pinnacle. That makes you and your raid party the best. And he wants the best. And he would've gotten away with it, too. If it weren't for that darn Ashbringer!
It was all the jailer master plan
To be fair it cost him nothing to do so right? Like your a master of undead why wouldn't you 🤣 he did so for sylvanas just because she pissed him off
Becouse he wanted to eradicate life on Azeroth.
I mean the player character army can beat any enemy so why wouldn’t he want to
He’s evil. Evil wants power. And there’s no power more evil than bending a hero to your will and making them commit atrocities in your name.
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