What should happen to Arthas?
by Elizabeth Wachowski 
Aug 6th 2007 at 1:30PM
Now that we know the Lich King will be waiting for us in the next expansion, lore junkies and raiders have begun to speculate exactly how his story will end -- or even if it will. Blizzard has shown no qualms about letting raid groups kill lore figures like Vashj and Kargath Bladefist, but they've also let some escape or resurrect (Kael'thas, Kel'thuzad) and arranged for Illidan's death to come at the hands of two lore characters as well as the raid. And Arthas is nearly a god right now. How can twenty-five adventurers hope to take him down?
Lysergide of Ravenholdt asks the European WoW Forums how they think the Arthas fight should go -- assuming we actually fight him head-on. He got some interesting answers:
- Jaina Proudmoore, Arthas's ex, could come in and help fight the Lich King at a certain percentage.
- The red dragon Alexstrasza could buff the raid to where they could defeat Arthas.
- Sylvanas, who hates Arthas more than anything and is apparently coming to Northrend with the sole intention of wiping out the Scourge, could kill him.
- Another bad dude, Kil'jaeden, has been trying to get to Arthas for years, and if the raid weakens him to a certain point, Kil'jaeden could take the opportunity to clean up.
- No one kills him. He disappears, or goes to another plane of existence, or just runs off and leaves a great big unguarded chest of loot -- or perhaps we never really fight him.
So far, my favorite proposal is from Ermynedra of Quel'Thalas, who writes: "Anyone remember the Kel'thuzad Phylactery quest? I predict he will fight for his friend and Master once more. This time they'll fight together. And Anub'arak will be there as well. To compensate having to fight three of these major characters, 2 Major Characters, one horde, one alliance, will fight alongside the raid. The Horde and Alliance united against a common enemy before, they will do so again. I think for the Horde it should be Sylvanas, for the Alliance it should be Magni Bronzebeard (has anyone forgotten the sacrifice Arthas made to get Frostmourne? Exactly). Sylvanas will attack Kel'thuzad, because he got in the way of her revenge before. Magni will attack Anub'arak because he was there when Baelgun Flamebeard was killed."
A big, epic battle between lore characters would be nice, but we'll have to see what Blizzard comes up with. Between the Scourge, the Legion, the Nightmare of the Emerald Dream, the Old Gods, and the Black Dragonflight, the Warcraft universe certainly has no shortage of villains.
What do you think should happen to Arthas?
Filed under: Expansions, Lore, Bosses, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
Madeen Sep 7th 2007 11:15AM
I think that Illidan will be resurrected and will rape arthus for good.
cheers
Nafaras Aug 6th 2007 3:22PM
There is only death.
Guttermouth Aug 8th 2007 11:41AM
I think the fight should go until about 5% where lore characters enter (mainly Jaina) in an atempt to speak to Arthas himself and not the lich king. Blizzard should work out a way for Arthas to be relieved from the Lich King's soul bound imprisonment. However Arthas did kill alot of people and if he was freed I'm pretty sure he would serve the rest of his life in the Stormwind Stockades.
/shrug
i dunno! =D
Dprice Aug 6th 2007 1:54PM
One way or another, the only path for Arthas is redemption through self-sacrifice, ala Anakin Skywalker.
Perhaps he can shake off the yoke of the Lich King at the end and do something to help us defeat him. They said that the lich king cant really die, but we can probably kick him out of azeroth into another dimension or something. Arthas though...alas, we knew him well.
hashpipe Aug 6th 2007 1:55PM
I think we shouldnt kill or even see Arthas yet. I mean yea there isnt a short supply of baddies but still and I remember hearing long time ago that Blizz wanted to cap the game at 100 well then Arthas at 80, whoever at 90 and then Sargeras at 100. end of WoW.
Hokuto Aug 6th 2007 11:32PM
Sylvanas, Bronzebeard and Arthas on the same place... Good lord, that alone would be a reason good enough to buy the expansion.
I'm still waiting to see Sylvanas showing her true self again.
LC_ Aug 6th 2007 2:04PM
Leeroy Jenkin's will run in and wipe everyone.
onetrueping Aug 7th 2007 3:23AM
Personally, I'm hoping they make use of the Frostmourne mechanic they were talking about. Have a separate instance, perhaps a Heroic version. The first time that Frostmourne drops, that person's character is copied, and made into the Heroic boss, with their talents and race intact. It might require a lot of coding, but imagine an instance boss who changes constantly, to become the very person that defeated the previous one...
Baluki Aug 6th 2007 2:19PM
I think it would be fun to see Jorad Mace try to take him out. He wouldn't win, but it'd be cool to see him try.
There are a lot of lore characters who have a bone to pick with Arthas...Jaina, Magni, Sylvanas, Tirion...I'd love to see them all get a chance to take him on.
And I've just gotta say, it's awesome that we'll all get to interact with Arthas somewhat, instead of it just being 1% of the population getting to raid him. I wish they had thought of doing that in BC.
Bubba Aug 6th 2007 2:49PM
:O Baelgun was never killed. He leads the town of Doorward, a town made up of human and dwarven survivors from Arthas' and Muradins expeditions. Braan visited him.
BSChim Aug 6th 2007 2:47PM
Illidan will come back and help us fight him, then when hes close to death he will vanish in thin air.. raiders get phat loots and lore characters stay alive, everyone's happy.
True story
Urthona Aug 6th 2007 8:19PM
Well, it's kind off strange that no one has mentioned that the Lich King might be too powerful to EVER defeat. He does have access to shaman, warlock, paladin, MS warrior, and necromancer powers, after all.
That's not to say that Ner'zhul can't be beat, or that Arthas Menethil can't be killed.
I can see Thrall, Tyrande, and Jaina actually working together to exorcise the two merged entities, making an incredibly difficult encounter as you have to maintain three faction leaders' uninterruption during phase 1 and defeat both magic-immune Arthas and melee-immune Ner'zhul before they re-merge.
tigress Aug 6th 2007 11:44PM
Maybe we'll redeem Arthas? Paladins are all about redemption.
chryse Aug 6th 2007 3:30PM
Best way to do this is that at 40%, Arthas moves away from the raid and release a shade, which we can call, Shade of Arthas, we will kill the shade and have the loot, meanwhile the real Arthas escapes.
Since we have Kiljaeden the head of the Burning Legion, and Arthas the head of the scourge. Killing a head master, will end of a hole ''faction'' legion army of the scourge, doing that, will power the burning legion even more, since kiljaeden can just build or get new tool to fight for him, since his last tool,Illidan got raped.
Ambril Aug 6th 2007 4:08PM
Uther the Lightbringer somehow, some way, comes back to have his say on matters.
Dave Aug 6th 2007 4:12PM
They mentioned that Naxx is going to float its merry way off to Northrend, so it's going to be involved somehow. They've mentioned that they're looking into having just one person in the raid needed to be keyed to an instance to allow the guild/raid to access it (like UBRS or whatever). So, there's a decent idea of a questline that involves you going into Naxx and retrieving a corrupted ashbringer. You then take the ashbringer to someone (Mograine's son most likely, but again who knows) who then takes the crystal out of the sword and purifies it and puts it into a new weapon for you. Assume that this is an epic and expensive questline that will require the guild's participation maybe like a slightly scaled down AQ gate opening, and for every guild.
If you look at the modified map and the original map, there's a suspicious indentation and new set of two small islands right around where Hearthglen and Scarlet Monastery happen to be... Perhaps the event that prompts the whole world to want to kill Arthas finally involves some sort of catastrophic event around those two spots, floating the remnants of the Scarlet Crusade (IMO the people who have the most reason to hate Arthas, and the people Arthas probably hates the most since he used to be Silver Hand and so did they..).
So, you'll have a fresh Ashbringer which should be the equal to Frostmourne. My guess is that none of the people in your raid can use it against Arthas exactly, and it'll have some sort of scripted event where some hero from the past (Turyalon, Tirion Fordring, maybe something crazy with a reborn Uther?).
Arthas probably won't die, at least not from the fight. If anything it'll just separate him from the Lich King. You'll get some sort of sappy "I'm sorry i was totally corrupted guys and I kinda screwed up so can we be pals again?" thing, and then Sylvannas will rush in and kill him. Or someone will, who knows. It better be epic, and I'm still guessing that even Tier 9 80th level characters aren't going to be 'enough' to kill Arthas + Lich King, so there may even be some sort of questline that gives you some magic that'll trap the Lich King separately from Arthas allowing you to just deal with the still rather powerful Arthas.
potatowedge Aug 6th 2007 4:30PM
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Kael'Thas Sunstrider in all of this. He's got quite a few bones to pick with Arthas (no pun intended), from stealing his girlfriend to nearly annihilating his people. And if Kael isn't really dead ... there's a lot out there that's pretty wide open right now.
Personally, I'd like to see Kael'Thas, Sylvanas, and Jaina Proudmoore all come and kick his arse. WC3:Frozen Throne was where I got into this story, and I'm very happy to see these storylines coming into play again.
KaonNemesis Aug 6th 2007 4:49PM
Well, for some reason Blizz has said that we will kill the "Lich King" in the expansion but have been ambiguous about Arthas. Since they became one-in-the-same once he got to the Frozen Throne this got me thinking... Perhaps Arthas will redeem himself in some way (he was good originally, remember) and you don't actually end up killing him. Instead he helps you defeat the source of his corruption and the true evil one, the Lich King (separated from Arthas again somehow).
Old School Aug 6th 2007 5:03PM
Does anyone remember the Ring War event with the giants in the Everquest Scars of Velious expansion? That sort of event, on an even grander scale is what a boss battle should entail. Like Blizz said, everyone will have an opportunity to have a had in Arthas' success or failure. This would be one way to make good on that claim.
For those of you who've only played WoW, it's like the battle between Orcs and Centaur's in the Barrens, but of epic proportions.
Ben Aug 6th 2007 5:01PM
Has anyone noticed that we're slowly chipping away at every major power standing between Azeroth and the Legion?
The bottom line when it comes to the Lich King is : we don't know. We don't know what he's been doing, why, or how. What we DO know is that he, like Illidan, is a force to be reckoned with, has a vested interest in the survival of the people of Azeroth, and has no love for the Legion.
Kil`jaedon must LOVE what we've been doing.