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by Daniel Whitcomb 
May 23rd 2009 at 2:00PM
Warning: This article contains spoilers for the Wrathgate in-game event.
So Callouse of Vashj posted a theory on the General Forums that is so elegant that I'm sort of ashamed I didn't think of it myself. At the Wrathgate, we know that Arthas absorbed the soul of Saurfang the Younger into his sword. Evidence also points to the idea that he stole Bolvar Fordragon's body. This has lead to rampant speculation that we will eventually fight one or both as thralls of the Lich King.
But Callouse posits that we may end up seeing one and both at once. That is, we'll see Saurfang the Younger's soul in Bolvar's body.
This does a few things. First, it sort of ties the new Death Knights together with old in a neat little full circle way. The first Death Knights were created by Gul'dan by imbuing death human knights with the souls of Orc Warlocks. With Arthas creating what might possibly be his last Death Knight in this "old" style, it brings the story of class together in a final way.
Secondly, it opens up some very nice story possibilities assuming this combined being, whom we shall call "Bolfang," is redeemed instead of killed. With Horde and Alliance animosities at an all-time high, Bolfang would be in an unprecedented position to mediate between the two factions. Since his human side is like a brother to King Wrynn and his Orc side is the son of one of Thrall's most trusted advisors, he has an inside line with the two major figures of each faction.
In addition, since Bolvar and Saurfang would in theory share their thoughts and knowledge, their combined life experiences would give them unique insights into each side, and give them a good chance of being able to communicate across cultural barriers and find a way for each side to understand the other. If Saurfang the Younger has even half the wisdom of his father, this is almost a given.
That said, there's a lot of people (myself included, admittedly) who would like to see this Horde-Alliance struggle continue instead of being resolved and forgotten at the end of this expansion. Luckily, there's still a chance for Bolfang to find a new place other than peacemaker: As Highlord of the Ebon Blade.
But wait, you say, we already have Darion Morgraine? I'll be honest here. Darion's sort of a downer. He's so busy being angry and vengeful that there's much else to him. Right now, Death Knights in general have a singular fixation on Arthas and the Scourge. But there's little indication of what happens after Arthas dies. Where do the Death Knights get their purpose? What do they do? I'm not so sure Darion can provide that. He's a somewhat one dimensional guy who just appeared out of a comic book, stole our thunder on the whole Ashbringer questline, and suddenly appears in game as the supreme lord of an entire class, one who spends most of his time brooding.
Now enter Bolfang. Both of these men are not only noble and tenacious, but again, have very strong ties to the Horde or Alliance. Not only is Highlord Bolfang a chance for the Knights of the Ebon Blade to start fresh and shake off the doldrums, but his close ties to the factions can help him manage and shepherd the Horde and Alliance Death Knights have begin to direct them to find new purpose as members of their factions and soldiers against the next great threat to Azeroth.
Bolfang's also sort of nice in that all of this development, no matter what form it takes, can be shown on screen involving two beloved in-game characters. This is less true of Bolvar, since his crowning moment of awesome has been retconned out of the game, but there's still enough of us old-timers around who remember his glory days to give him some love. And regardless, all of this development going on in novels and manga gets old sometimes. The prospect of having a major lore twister like Bolfang get developed and make his debut solely in game would be quite a treat, especially if we get another trailer to go with it.
Kudos again to Callouse for thinking this theory up. I'm really sort of hoping now that Blizzard goes this route.
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Lore, Bosses, RP, NPCs, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King, Rumors
Reader Comments (Page 4 of 5)
devilsei May 23rd 2009 6:19PM
Yeah, he may be wanting to kill the Lich King, he isn't so near-sighted as to not think ahead. He has seen what he's become through treachery, and that of all those around him. That is why he fought back against the LK's control. He no longer wants to serve as a puppet, thats how he died, and was raised in undeath as. The class itself, or at least Darion, seems to be that of an anti-hero. His tactics, and that of some other Deathknights we see, may be cruel, but they are effective, and ultimately, doesn't cause any harm to their allies. The fleshwork quest chain shows this. Even after someone dies, the Death knight there tells you to get his remains, and revive him. Interesting to note, is this guy is of the Argent Crusade, the opposite of them. He comes back to life good as normal. I was expecting a zombie or something, but that surprised me. The Death Knight could of just as easily reported the paladin died in battle, but he has you go through the warzone the works turned into, taking his parts back, sew em together, and bring him back. Shows an ounce of care huh?
Maxim May 23rd 2009 7:54PM
But if I remember correctly, he only wanted his 'comrade' sewn back together as a means to an end. He said something along the lines of, do this and the Argent Crusade will not tarry any longer. I may be wrong, but I remember something along the lines of this.
devilsei May 23rd 2009 8:28PM
I'm not denying that was also the factor, but considering the death knight really couldn't do anything about him getting snatched by a frost wyrm and killed, she could of easily told us to go inform them, or inform them herself, that he died in battle. In a way, it would be true. Death knights may be dead, but unlike the forsaken, haven't forgotten their emotions. Which is shown in the beginning quests for the class.
I also just realized the deathknight I'm talking about is a she... XD
She did say he was a commander though (I'm looking at the quest right now) and that he was needed for the assault.
a little off, but hey, who knows, maybe those two were intimate huh? Deathknight Gnome and paladin Draenei, sounds like a great romance story!
Brasson May 23rd 2009 9:56PM
All of this seems to assume that the hypothetical Bolfang would gain his freedom at some point. Having lost a significant number of death knights in the Acherous Incident, there is a strong likelihood that the Lich King would have enhanced or solidified his control over his minions.
A hostile Bolfang could use all of the attributes listed in the article for some truly terrible deeds.
John May 23rd 2009 9:16PM
Just an FYI, Callouse is not the first person to bounce this idea around. People have been throwing this theory out for months on the RP Forums.
Secondly, this idea bores me. Yes its nice to see two cool characters return, but its also nice to see them DIE sometimes. They have the unique position of being the first characters to die in an in-game WoW cutscene, leave them dead. Keep the war going or else change the name to World of Peacecraft.
We have plenty of cool things coming in 3.1 with a whole truckload of characters Horde, Alliance, and Neutral that need to be brought into the Arthas fight. There is no need to add two more characters into the mix. Jaina, Varian, Tirion, Thrall, Sylvannas, Saurfang Sr., hell possibly even Alexstrasza/Korialstrasz all have a tie in with the Scourge/Arthas there is no need to add two more characters into the mix. Keep them dead.
John May 23rd 2009 9:16PM
Meant 3.3 *oops*
Leviathon May 23rd 2009 10:02PM
In the Yogg-Saron encounter we see the Lich King corrupting a 'Immolated Champion' which is Bolvar with a 'Turned Champion' appearing after Arthas mentions he will break Bolvar like he did Saurfang. In the end I don't think Bolvars corpse was destroyed like many thing considering it is a body Arthas is corrupting and not a spirit type thing. Guess we will be fighting both a corrupted Saurfang and Bolvar in Icecrown Citadel or the 5 man coming with it.
jeanericuser May 23rd 2009 10:39PM
I think this will in many ways the fight may be like that of the end of the movie mortal kombat with the fight with shang tsung. The fight starts with an easy battle with the lich king. Then you get to face a bunch of warriors he absorbed in soul form. Then another fight with the lich king only this time the lich king will start to weaken as frostmourn loses its power to hold back the souls of all it has absorbed. The resulting explosion will shatter frostmourn and severely weaken the lich king. This in turn will allow him to be beaten entirely as his armor with begin to break up leaving only arthas behind. Once the armor is destroyed than arthas will be pretty much an easy boss to beat and thus the lich king will die. Probably they the faction that has killed him will see the spirit of the some of those who died at wrathgate thanking them for freeing their souls while pointing out a near by private chest of valueables arthas kept before he became the lich king. That would be a somewhat fitting end.
Varcse May 24th 2009 9:18AM
where exactly is wrath gate?
RogueJedi86 May 24th 2009 12:08AM
Am I the only person who hears "Orc Soul in Human Body" and thinks echoes of Arthas? Maybe this theoretical mix of Bolvar and Saurfang Jr. is a prelude to the fate of the Lich King. The Lich King is defeated, but a new one takes his place, this one also being an Orc in a human shell. If you want a further twist, maybe the new Lich King would be the antithesis to the current one. Orc Soul+Human Shell, but a force of good instead of evil. But that would also mean trying to explain all the evil scourge in the Plaguelands and Northrend despite being controlled by a good guy now.
Leviathon May 24th 2009 3:01AM
The Lich King now is a human soul in a human body since Ner'zhul has been fully suppressed by Arthas.
Can tell what people have read Arthasor looked at what was mentioned in it :p
devilsei May 24th 2009 12:19AM
Well, considering novels are canon, its possible that Arthas still resides in the body somewhere, just severely repressed by Ner'zhul's will. I remember that a passage of the new book released spoke of a large hall with three figures, Arthas's body, the Orc Ner'zhul, and a child who was severely ill/weak.
For all we know, the lich king had remained stationary so long because somewhere within Arthas his will remained, and fought against the take over. Redemption for Arthas may come in the form of him doing something to slow or halt his body in some way. We've seen snippets of his power.
Hell, this is just an idea.
Fordring accompanies you into the king's chamber in Icecrown. After some banter, Fordring challenges him to a duel, and orders you to ensure no one interferes with the fight. You spend this phase dealing with waves of mobs trying to break through and interfere. Considering Yogg's defeat, the area is already weakened, and the power of the two slowly destroy the room, adding in elements of danger. When the LK sees his minions cant break your line of defense, he forces Fordring away long enough to prepare an attack aimed at you and your group (Armageddon maybe, which is seen during the DK area's final quests). Fordring throws himself infront of it and takes the brunt, using the ashbringer and his own power to shield your group. This attack inadvertently destroys the area further, forcing you out to the open, now here's where a hardmode can come in. Fordring orders you to go after the lich king, who runs out of the collapsing area, telling you not to worry about him. The hard mode would be heeding his words, while normally two characters have to talk and click on him, helping him to the next area.
Outside, the dragon flights would be fighting the frost wyrms and possibly Syndragosa (if we haven't finished her already). You follow arthas across a bridge and to a suspended platform, the bridge being a guantlet styled encounter. (Yes, the two people carrying fordring can't help). Now why is this a hardmode? I'll tell you. When you reach the platform, the fight begins. Bursts of dragon's fire will land on the platform, which will give you buffs depending on the flames, corresponding with the dragonflight that shot them. At certain intervals, Arthas will slam you all back and root you in place, while readying his ultimate attack. With Fordring there, he'll gather what strength he has and nails him with a burst of holy energy, applying a debuff to increase damage and cancelling the attack. He'll also call out to what is left of Arthas which has a chance to slow the LK's attacks and weaken him. A player can also grab Ashbringer every so often, as its power is diminished and needs to rest, and when picked up, adds a ton-o holy damage to your attacks for 10-secs.
Hardmode? Well, no way to interrupt the heavy damage attack, and it applies a strong debuff that weakens everyone and does considerable damage over time, only removed by anyone bathed in the flames of the red dragonflight. No debuff, and no random boughts of weakness.
The fight, once it hits 10%, changes radically. If you bring Fordring with you, he'll be too tired to help, and collapses, the LK, angered, starts channeling all his power into a final attack. The debuff on him will slow the cast time on this, giving you more time to burn down that final bit of health. The Lich king stumbles back with frostmourne and falls off the edge and into the raging flames surrounding the citadel, and soon buried by all the debree.
If you didn't bring Fordring, he rushes in, having time to rest and cancels out the attack by hurling the Ashbringer straight at the lich king and embedding it in his chest. The amount of holy energy still within the ashbringer, (since it wasn't used during the fight this time) rips Ner'zhuls spirit from Arthas's body, you then have to fight the spirit. The true part of hardmode is that if you don't kill the spirit quick enough, he'll force his way back into Arthas's body and you'll have to finish him off, resulting in what happens above. If you do manage it though, Arthas is able to take control of his body. Him and Fordring speak, before Arthas forces himself to stand up as the LK's armor cracks and falls away. He drops frostmourne, and calls out to the queen of the red dragonflight to bathe him in flames before dieing.
Now, besides this piece of lore, what's special about doing hardmode? You'll be able to grab Frostmourne, which after the surge of holy energy, has been cleansed of its curse and the souls it has devoured, and thus, safe to wield.
Leviathon May 24th 2009 2:57AM
"Well, considering novels are canon, its possible that Arthas still resides in the body somewhere, just severely repressed by Ner'zhul's will. I remember that a passage of the new book released spoke of a large hall with three figures, Arthas's body, the Orc Ner'zhul, and a child who was severely ill/weak.
For all we know, the lich king had remained stationary so long because somewhere within Arthas his will remained, and fought against the take over. Redemption for Arthas may come in the form of him doing something to slow or halt his body in some way. We've seen snippets of his power.
Hell, this is just an idea. "
Ner'zhul is the suppressed one and Arthas is fully (and has been since he 're-awakened') in control now according to the book.
devilsei May 24th 2009 3:25AM
Ahh, I have yet to grab a copy of the book so thanks for telling me. Seems a bit odd that Arthas would be doing all this of his own will, considering the reason why he hunted down Frostmourne to begin with. Eh, I guess its possible Ner'zhul twisted his mind around something fierce though.
Leviathon May 24th 2009 1:42PM
The book really gives you an idea of the type of person Arthas really was by the time he picked up Frostmourne :p
Codexx May 29th 2009 6:28AM
I have two hopes for the future fight in Icecrown.
1: We fight them, Twin Emperors style.
2: The one we fight will be based on our faction, and some of the loot will be like the Argent Tournament loot, same/similar stats, different name and model.
Sure, they could both be separate bosses, but that's just padding the instance with filler, though it would prevent issues in my 2nd idea, where one boss becomes a loot pinata and the other a gear check.
I haven't seen the flashbacks yet, my guild seems to quit trying/tanks can't be online whenever we actually put a significant dent in the instance. But the "Immolated Champion" and Arthas "breaking" his Death Knights is at least consistent with the Scourge's Death Knight lore. Not that I would have minded it coming full circle.
I'd also like to point out, that while the Onyxia event in Stormwind is no longer possible, it hasn't been retconned. Phasing would be nice, however. Let lower level players see Bolvar there and let the Masquerade continue until they hit 78.
Estrosiath May 24th 2009 6:23AM
Oh god. I hope not.
If I truly must be honest, even though I play on a PvE server, I truly think all this "neutral city" business is for the birds. Why make two enemy factions if in the end you FORCE them to cooperate? This is like a bad game of Dungeons and Dragons where the DM railroads you into doing what he wants you to do.
The truth is peace between the two factions is an utopia at best. I don't deny that Thrall is wise, but he obviously has no idea how to work towards a peace agreement with the Alliance (mostly because of differing ideologies present within the horde - but you can just read "Varian Wrynn is right" on the website if you want a summary of the reasons why peace just isn't going to happen).
Varian Wrynn (like him or hate him, it does not matter) is a strong, opinionated leader, who wants to gain back what the Alliance has lost. He has no faith in the orcs (justifiably so), and is bound to lock horns with Jaina in a violent way soon (especially if he were to learn that she basically was an accessory to the murder of her father, one of the Alliance's greatest heroes).
I really hope Blizzard does not try to force peace between the two factions again. They were lazy with Shattrath and Dalaran (notice those are Alliance cities originally). I hope the next expansion does not have a neutral city but two cities instead. And I hope the next expansion introduces more phasing technology, where maybe one faction could gain control over the other's city (I'm thinking the Alliance reconquering Lordaeron, at the very least). To put it simply - The idea of "contained" PVP is ludicrous. Real PvP should be world pvp, or at the very least Wintergrasp like zones. And it should affect the world in some real way, not only be a honor farm.
Aries May 25th 2009 5:14AM
You obviously play alliance and still think Alliance = Good Guys and Horde = Bad Guys. That's not the case. At all.
Drahliana May 27th 2009 11:20AM
Shattrah was never an Alliance city. A'dal imposed his peace on all who entered before the Dark Portal was re-opened, but the faction division in this case was Scryers/Aldor as opposed to Dalarans' Horde and Alliance quarters, which is why you had Horde and Alliance settling in both quadrants. As for Dalaran, remember it was founded by mages who wanted to escape an increasing amount of controls being put on thier activities by Stromgarde. At best it was a shaky member of the Alliance of Lordaeron during peacetime. After Dalaran was reduced to ruins, they essentially cut off all contact with the Alliance in general.
Realmreaver May 24th 2009 9:26AM
Seriously. I would LOVE to see him lead the Death Knights... I mean it's a form of 'good' Scourge! Being basically unholy paladins and likely the flipside of Paladins liken that of the ashbringer itself; It would be great to see Bolfang lead them.
I also hope Ebon hold rep would also allow us who desire it to communicate with the opposing factions. I want the ability to walk into Ogrimaar as a Alliance char and they know that I worked to bring peace and not war to them. (provided we are allowed to pvp for fun outside faction cities.)