Breakfast Topic: I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds
by Matthew Rossi 
Aug 26th 2009 at 8:00AM
If you play or have played a DK past level 58, you had the experience of the DK starting area, with the intensely well crafted solo play from doomed soul raised from death by the Lich King to rising power among the armies of the dead to eventual rebellion against the Lich King and his designs for Azeroth. Even if you haven't, if you're level 74 or above I hope you've experienced the Wrathgate event, with its excellent cinematic. (If you have not been to the Wrathgate yet somehow, don't click those links.)
Now, as we digest our BlizzCon diet of news and information from this weekend, we now know that a new expansion is in the works and we, therefore, can anticipate the last act of this expansion when we storm Icecrown Citadel and confront Arthas/Nerzhul in his seat of power. In the very near future, we are going to be fighting the Lich King, and when he eventually is defeated we will have come to an end to this particular story. If you're playing a DK in particular, this is the big moment for you. While we don't know what, exactly, will be happening to Arthas we do know that with his defeat, your DK has done what Darion Mograine set out to do and defeated the very being who raised the Death Knights to their shallow unlife.
Even if you aren't a DK this is a huge moment. The villain who destroyed Lordaeron and condemned its people to horrid undeath, the former fair haired boy of the Kingdom, the one behind the death of Saurfang the Younger and (possibly) Bolvar Fordragon, the despoiler of Zul'Drak, the man who burned Stratholme and chased Malganis only to lose his own soul in the process, the entity who served Kil'Jaeden willingly in corrupting the Horde only to learn too late how wrong he was... this paired essence of menace, these joined voices of darkness are going down, and it's you who is making it happen. If you're an orc, this is the guy who traded your people to demons. If you're a human or a Forsaken, here is your chance to revenge the destruction, slaughter, and slavery. Blood Elves? This is the guy who stormed Silvermoon and who destroyed the Sunwell, dooming you and your Prince to the pains and madness that nearly destroyed you and which did make your beloved Prince Kael'Thas a slave to ever increasing obsession and insanity.
Draenei? Here's the guy who pointed the orcs at your people and nearly wiped you out, and then managed to blow up your freaking planet.
This is a huge moment. More so than Ragnaros, or Illidan, or any of the previous big bosses of World of Warcraft up till now, both sides of the Lich King are tragic figures but they're also personally damned and reviled because of their own actions, understandable but still monsters, and you will have the chance to be part of the group that kills the King of Death itself. You will defeat Death, the destroyer of worlds. You've killed the Old God of Death, and now you get to take down the mocker of fate, the raiser of the dead, the defiler of the slain.
So the question I put forth for you to discuss, my friends, is this: are you prepared?
I'm very sorry, but it had to be done. Are you ready to kill the Lich King? Are you ready for the end of Wrath? Did it come too soon, take too long, or are you feeling that the time has indeed come and you'e ready to go? Will you be raiding Icecrown when it launches? Is it too soon, do you feel that the time has not yet come, or are you set to roll on the Citadel as soon as patch 3.3 drops?
Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Odds and ends, Instances, Expansions, Raiding, Lore, BlizzCon, Death Knight, Wrath of the Lich King
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 6)
Burninate Aug 26th 2009 8:03AM
Very well written. Loved the Illidan quote at the end. =P
Ghrall Aug 26th 2009 10:45AM
My thoughts exactly
JPN Aug 26th 2009 8:07AM
Wrathgate was SO COOL...I'd hope no one missed it...it was kind of spoiled for me by everyone, guild members and web sites and stuff, and I didn't particularly care for how they did the Battle for UC (when I arrived it was already done and also bugged for me and never restarted, disappointing) but I hope for a lot more events like both of those in Cataclysm, especially in places we've already been in Azeroth...
Trivium Aug 26th 2009 8:11AM
I'm bored of Ulduar hard modes and easy trickled ToC content... bring on Icecrown Citadel! Lets actually do what we came to do! ;D
tahlatria Aug 26th 2009 8:13AM
Kudos to Mr. Rossi. This was extremely well written and even though the dk's that we play today are nothing like what they were in the beginning, your summary of all the LK is responsible for is one awesome reminder of why he has to die. Revenge is best served cold and I don't think it gets much colder than in Ice Crown.
Thank you so much for filling in the blanks for all of us who lost sight of the goal or who started after the big event and still hadn't discovered all the missing pieces of the puzzle.
Bobby Aug 26th 2009 8:26AM
"Revenge is best served cold and I don't think it gets much colder than in Ice Crown. " haha thanks I found that pretty funny.
getoff Aug 26th 2009 8:18AM
Fantastic article yet again Matthew, thanks. Made my day, really!
Carver Aug 26th 2009 8:20AM
Oh hell yes. I don't raid at the moment and probably won't be when Icecrown is released, but I've been ready for that whiny brat to die since Warcraft 3 *started*.
Silverdragon Aug 26th 2009 8:51AM
very much so this
Adriano Aug 26th 2009 8:24AM
I think this will be EPIC, much more of any dungeon/instance/event in this game, and the battle itself will be the trigger of the cataclysm.
jealouspirate Aug 26th 2009 8:35AM
The battle will definitely be epic, but the cataclysm is triggered by the Plane of Earth crashing up through the surface of Azeroth when Deathwing returns. Srsly.
Laughtrey Aug 26th 2009 8:23AM
No one in my guild seems to care about lore crap as much as I do, or the ones that do don't seem to take in the gravity of this situation, or the depression fact that we're going to kill the Lich King then sort of Downgrade to Deathwing.
The Lich King has been built up since Warcraft 3, more so than any other Warcraft villian in recent memory. This guy is gonna mark the last of the continuation from the WC3 story and sort of tie up most of the loose ends that were started in 3.
The bittersweet part is that once we kill the Lich King, most things to me at least seem trivial by comparison. Kil'Jaeden was scared of the Lich King so he sent Illidan to sneak attack him. If KJ is scared of the Lich King, it's logically to assume that the only being more powerful than the Lich King is Sargeras. Neltharion is a big threat in his own right, but we just killed Malygos and will have the backing of the red green and bronze dragonflight in the fight against DW. (For those saying DW is tougher than Maly, think of Maly as a mage and DW as a warrior. Theyre the same just different)
I think things are really gonna change lore-wise when we take him down. I don't know if I am prepared.
Kaorael Aug 26th 2009 8:46AM
Kil'jaeden was never scared of the Lich King. In fact he was the one that created him!
If he did send Illidan to deal with Arthas and the Lich King, it was because he could not manifest himself on Azeroth directly. He needed a huge source of power to do it like the Sunwell, and that one backfired on him thanks to the work of dragons.
cmichaelcooper Aug 26th 2009 8:51AM
I don't think the Lich King is more powerful than Deathwing, but his aggressive style has made him more of an immediate threat to the civilizations of Azeroth than the scheming methods of the Aspect. I think Deathwing wants to destroy the planet, and will make huge strides in that direction right out of the gate, rather than just turn the inhabitants into zombies. He wants to undo the entirety of what the Titans accomplished.
Illidan and Arthas/LK were romantic villains because so much of the storyline revolved around them, and they may have achieved tremendous levels of power, but there have always been more powerful figures circling the dark areas outside the brightly lit center stage that Illidan and Arthas have been hogging.
I, for one, will be welcoming the end of the Arthas storyline, with all due reverence, to explore those darker areas.
Kia Aug 26th 2009 9:03AM
Bingo. This is -exactly- what I said to my friends right after reading this article.
Cyrus Aug 26th 2009 9:20AM
"(For those saying DW is tougher than Maly, think of Maly as a mage and DW as a warrior. Theyre the same just different)"
But Deathwing *is* tougher than Maly. They may have started out the same, but Deathwing betrayed the other dragonflights and decimated them. Malygos was comatose from the War of the Ancients until WotLK, mad with grief over the loss of nearly all the blue dragonflight; during all that time, Deathwing was *making new dragonflights*.
He's been beaten before, sure. In fact, he's had so many plans thwarted that he's approaching a comic book villain who keeps on getting beaten and escaping somehow. Malygos, at least, had the decency to die. But just by the numbers, a dragon aspect under the influence of the Old Gods, leading genetically engineered new composite dragonflights, is a more powerful threat than anything we've faced so far. (Those Old Gods themselves would be bigger threats if they weren't fighting us while still in their prisons.)
Suzaku Aug 26th 2009 9:37AM
Arthas simply has the luxury of being prominently featured in one of the few Warcraft products that's familiar to WoW players in general, and was directly involved in lore which set up the current state of the World of Warcraft. The Scourge were really the last major threat to the world before WoW, and so they're in immediate memory, and are a driving factor in the backstories for two of the game's races (Forsaken and blood elves), and also figure prominently in the histories of a few other characters and organizations.
However, the thing about the Lich King is that he never was, and never has been, the be-all, end-all of Warcraft villains.
Ner'zhul is almost forgotten entirely by WoW players, despite being the original Lich King and the creator of the Scourge, not to mention a major figure in the history of the orcs and draenei, as well as one of the main players in WC2. He simply doesn't have the exposure that Arthas has, and so, he's sidelined. It doesn't help that Blizzard seems unsure of how to incorporate him into the Lich King, shifting their stance from a "perfect fusion of evil" to the current... "Ner'zhul was absorbed by Arthas' psyche who banished his humanity to become the perfect fusion of evil."
Deathwing and Sargeras are not particularily well known, to be honest. I'd wager that the vast majority of players weren't even familiar with Deathwing, despite a couple of his kids being major raid bosses in WoW, and his presence always being felt, even in Outland. He's always had an influence in the MMORPG, but gone unseen and largely unmentioned, and many people simply don't understand how powerful he is, or how much history he has in the lore. Sargeras is at least a bit lucky in that he's been frequently mentioned by players as being the likely final villain of WoW.
Azshara is another major player that's supposed to be even stronger than the Lich King, but has the misfortune of being mostly relegated to books. She's even specifically ranked as being more powerful than the Lich King in one of the RPG books. It seems that Cataclysm will be building her up, setting her up as a major threat to the world and showing her influence, but not actively featuring her, according to Metzen. It would seem that they're attempting to lay the groundwork for another major villain in the next expansion.
And that's really what Cataclysm is all about. To be perfectly frank, so far, WoW's expansions have been about finishing the unfinished business of WC3. Cataclysm will really transition WoW out of the era of the Illidari and the Scourge, into a new era of disasters, cults, elemental planes, and Old Gods.
Kylenne Aug 26th 2009 9:26AM
Uh, I'm pretty sure Kil'jaeden wasn't afraid of the Lich King. KJ's issue was that he simply couldn't waltz into Azeroth and take him out himself, thus he enlisted Illidan. (Of course, there's always that little nagging cutscene in TFT to contend with, where he inexplicably seems to be chatting in the flesh with Illidan, but I always chalked that up to a glamour.)
Canadiansun Aug 26th 2009 11:34AM
The thing is like Metzen said at Blizzcon Deathwing has been, Supercharged by the Old Gods. So His power has increased tenfold or so. Perhaps five fold because of the level cap. So As of now he has gained power Greater Greater than the Lich King
As For Kil'Jaeden. The reason he was frightened of the Lich King, wasn't that Arthas/Ner'Zhul was more powerful than him, it was because he COULD become so.
Rallix Aug 26th 2009 6:16PM
I don't really think it is fair to say Deathwing is equal to Malygos in anyway. Malygos was pretty much a crazy aspect doing crazy things thinking that no one would turn and face him. However, Deathwing has been ploting and planning in the darkness for ages. He knows who is enemies are, he knows Alexstraza will lead an army against, and all of azeroth will try to destroy him. I mean Deathwing has had adamantite basicly infused into his skin, making him much harder to kill then Malygos. A quote from the Warcraft 2 manual
"Deathwing, Second in power to only Alexstrasza herself, Deathwing is one of the greatest
terrors of the known world.
During the Second War, Goblin alchemists adhered plates of adamantine steel to the Black
Dragon. This made the great beast virtually invulnerable to almost any physical attack.
Deathwing has taken control of a group of renegade Dragons and roosts with them upon his
mountain in the Northeast of Draenor."
Not to mention I dont think Deathwing is as stupid as Malygos to say "Here comes my 20k a second deep breath, hears an anti magic shield to stand in so you dont get hurt"