WoW Players who never played Warcraft 3: "Arthas did the best he could." Arthas, in game: Having a Legolas and Gimli style body counting contest with Malganis
I played WC3 but came away with the same conclusion as "WoW players who never played Warcraft 3," I guess my interpretation of the story at least remains my personal headcanon lol
for your knowledge Arthas kill his own people before they turn to the undead so they exprince clean death no oblivion or any thing arthas bring pain to himself to save his people soul
Wouldn't burning the bodies prevent the corpses from being risen? Pretty sure there is a Wotlk quest that confirms corpses burnt to ash can't be raised. It seems Arthas' choice would have slowed down the scourge had he burned the bodies afterward.
Well hold on, in the game the grain is presented to the player as being what turns people into undead. Sure, a Necromancer can come in after the fact and raise the dead or stitch them together into an abomination, but that requires there to be a necromancer there to raise that skeleton or create that abomination. On the other hand if you leave the city as is, it will turn into the undead completely from the grain which contains the plague. This wasn't a flaw in the players interpreting what the designers meant, it was a flaw in the designers explaining what the grain actually did, as it was presented as the thing that turned them into zombies, not just something that killed them and then let necromancers turn them into things. More so, you can still argue Arthas gave them a swift death as opposed to letting them watch their own family fall and eat their faces, or do you think any game where a character kills an infected family member to spare them from turning into a zombie means that character is evil?
Only if all of them were plagued, which they were not. Play Insane Monster's The Culling. It's closer to the original vision before it was nerfed for namby-pambys who couldn't handle the truth.
@@DesignerDave So one of the best parts of the story was a fluke on Blizzard's end then? The whole thing that made Arthas an interesting character was that he was put in a situation where he couldn't win knowing that Strath was doomed and he either let it turn or he destroyed it to spare the people from watching it happen. Then it lead him down the path of being in too deep with escalating bad choices until he was fully corrupted. Now you're telling me he was just intended to be an evil mustache twirling villain the whole time with no moral complexity. I'm starting to see why so many of Blizzard's stories ended up being flops when expanded upon, guess it was just dumb luck they were interpreted with any kind of depth originally.
@@Demagogue88 Not sure how you came to that conclusion... What is it about Asmongold viewers that they can't comprehend: "first step on the path of evil" or discern the difference from "mustache twirling villain from the start?" Do those two sentences seem the same to you?
@@DesignerDave Not sure where you got the Asmongold bit, but here's the issue you're missing, many people viewed the Culling as a no win situation where the entire city was infected and Arthas made the decision to give them a merciful death and challenged the player to consider if that was right or not. It reminded me of a scene from a show where a member of a group was pinned under rubble and injured such that they would die no matter what but the group had to keep moving though tried to stay as long as possible to comfort the trapped member. At one point the commander of the group is left alone with the trapped person and they ask the commander to kill them as they don't wish to die alone when the party moves on. The commander does so by suffocating the trapped member, and later in the show it results in a mental breakdown of the commander because even though the person was trapped and was going to die regardless and they asked to be put out of the pain, the commander still had to be the one that killed them and keep it a secret as others might not accept the action. The breakdown wasn't the result of just that action, but as the commander said it was the build up all of the things and having to do that lead to a spiral which ultimately left him in an alcoholic stupor. That's essentially what people took from the Culling, the city and everyone in it was dead no matter what and the moral question was whether it was right to end their suffering by euthanasia or to let nature takes its course and what the choice of either said about the individual making the choice. That's a very a complicated topic of mortality that has occurred in reality and continues to come up. Yet here you are saying that it wasn't at all deep, and that the right interpretation was that it was a surface level action of irredeemable evil. If that's the case, and the obvious action was to do nothing, then who cares if Arthas kills the mercenaries later on, he's just evil already. Who cares if he kills Muradin, he's already just evil. There's no escalation in any of those actions if he's knowingly just killing random civilians in the Culling.
"The Culling" is so great because Arthas is both right and wrong. We see in game that if you kill the citizens they stay dead, and if you kill an undead warrior they also stay dead. But what he is doing, in a purely moral sense, is wrong. But it's made even better when both Uthor and Jaina can't come up with any viable alternative (even in extended canon like Arthas: Rise of the Litch King). It's just a perfectly designed level and story.
@@ImperatorofNewEngland Yes, in a vacuum it is morally reprehensible to butcher innocent people. You are intentionally ignoring the "turning into a fucking zombie" part. I realize that your understanding of writing basically equates to joss whedon style modern superhero "good vs evil, morally grey? whats that" but surely even you can understand that some things are more complex than that, right?
@@khanychung Never said it was black and white, it is in fact a very grey situation. But slaughtering thousands of innocent isn't morally right. It this case it is logically correct, but not morally correct.
My interpretation of the Culling was always that Arthas killed the infected villagers and set the city on fire, destroying the bodies in such a way that prevented them from being risen. In the outro we can clearly see Stratholme aflame and throngs of corpses being burned on pyres, no undead waking up and jumping on the ones throwing them to the rest of the burning corpses. Arthas could either wait for them to turn and join the scourge, thereby having much more foes to fight in battle (the city was huge - at least your map portrayal and the lore tidbits in-game indicated that - so it would be really bad to face so many undead later in the field) or destroy them in such a way, that they wouldn't rise up again. There was no other way, a quarantine wouldn't be fast enough to contain them, fighting more foes equals more losses on the human side, which again equals more undead to face in the future if the corpses are not destroyed.
Nope, there was always another way. To move on, to find another way, to flee and save those who were not yet plagued... If you fight the undead you bolster the undead forces. It's distinctly established in the story. The only reason that anyone was burning corpses is because Malganis had left, his mission accomplished. They didn't even WANT Stratholme. It was never their goal to take it... Even if Arthas didn't know that part, he DID know that there was a significant risk of bolstering the undead forces with his slaughter... and he wasn't slaughtering just undead, he was slaughtering civilians. If his forced had been overwhelmed at that point, they were all doomed and he'd have completely aided the undead! Uther and Jaina were correct, Arthas was wrong. Everything about the story tells you that Arthas was wrong. That's the whole point of The Culling... It is his turn towards true evil... Through mass slaughter.
@@DesignerDave Except if you don't fight the undead, The undead forces are bolstered anyways. Mal'Ganis's mission in WC3 was always to assist the Undead in weakening Lordaeron. He had two options with Straholme, either Arthas goes into Straholme and therefore can be sent to Northrend, or Mal'Ganis gets the second largest city in Lordaeron in worth to Undead. And out of the game, blizzard changed it to where you, the player have to target the villagers while they are living to kill them. That does change how the mission goes about. Uther and Jaina in WC3, had no other alternatives. Nothing. Uther said there's got to be some other way, not that he had a way. (And if you want to use the Cavern of Time's version of the events from Wrath, then we can bring up that Antonidas, knew what the plague did, and that there was no cure, before even sending Jaina out. That's why the Kirin Tor went for Quarantine in the Cinematic, but a quarantine, does nothing to cure the plague. Add in the fact that Baron Rivendare, is from Straholme, it would of been difficult to implement.)
@@zeilke5361 Fight them or don't, the result is the same then... Thus the only solution is to run and save those who can still be saved. Glad you agree.
@@DesignerDave How in gods name do you read that and I think I agree? I disagree, because you run to Kalimdor, and the Undead still show up. What then, you can't run away anymore. Nothing has changed.
@@zeilke5361The Undead only show up in Kalimdor after Arthas assassinates the King. Thus if Arthas had not fallen into the Lich King's trap by mass murdering and turning to evil, it would have taken months or even years to get through all the forces of Lordaeron...
If you wanted to convince to the players that what Arthas did was objectively wrong then you should've depicted an aftermath of Stratholme that showed the culling did nothing to prevent the rise of the undead scourge and that his killing of peasants was all in vain, but what would've been an even greater indicator of his descent into madness would be a scene afterwards where he justified his actions anyway and that he might have even enjoyed it. All we see at the end is a city in flames, dead bodies being burned and no more undead which might suggest it was a necessary evil. I also always thought that Arthas becoming evil happened too quickly but that's neither here nor there.
The fact that there were unplagued villagers and that he left before burning anything was all you needed to know it was wrong and about vengeance rather than stopping anything. Nothing more needed to be added as it would have distracted from the main story. The point is to catch these things after the fact with thought... Not shove it in your face under the assumption you're dumb. Watch The Fugitive and then The Fugitive 2 and you'll understand why what you're saying should have been done, is dumb.
@@DesignerDave i think whats your missing dave is morally gray option situation the arthas did nothing wrong fans are right but your also right, arthas has next to no reason justifying Killing massive amounts of people because thet had a will to survive and to try to stop the plauge but arthas also ij a way did nothing wrong doin because they're going to turn into zombies anyways even if arthas is a Psychopath or not we cant properly say he did the right thing or not because at one point sparing startholme would only benefit the enemy and if you try to kill all the villagers it will only cause mass genocide and as you said psychopathic tendencies that nobody ever likes. For me i think that arthas is somewhere in the middle a confused person whos trying to do what he believes is right but couldn't know if his actions is right or wrong he just do what he does.
So in terms of morally right or wrong or doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing cannot properly said in this scenario because either way arthad would have lost everyone would have lost anyway because as you said theres no cure for the plauge so try to do the right way ot wrong way we still lose.
@@johnpauldelacruz4278 There is nothing I'm "missing." I made the level. He did the wrong thing here. It should be obvious, and if it isn't, it's not a failing of the writing or level. It's a failure of the player. Genocide is always wrong. You don't know that they will all turn and the next level clearly states that not everyone was going to turn and that Arthas did not stay to burn the bodies or do anything responsible related to his supposed need to "save his people." He chased his vengeance to Northrend...
@@DesignerDave I agree genocide is wrong but when you have absolutely no choice? Man that is hard decision to make even for someone who is not arthas. It's either you give them a quick and peaceful death or give them even more pain by sparing them and letting them get controlled by this horrible dreadlord who wants nothing but only death to the word. imagine if it's a real apocalyptic scenario where whatever you do you always fail what would you do then? Can you really blame the person whos just doing what he believes is right? Plus arthas only followed malganis in northernd because he was led to believe that if he kills this supposed dreadlord everyone can be saved and then world can have a chance at fighting back the plague that's arthas point of view, he did not go there to run away or something it's to fight of what he believed the source of the plauge that ravaged and killed his homeland.
I always got the impression that Arthas doesn't know who Medivh is. Nonetheless while sailing west is better choice at this point of time that is random hint given by random hobo mage. Don't get me wrong Dave but for prince (madness or no madness) moving whole kingdom worth of people on a random hint vs staying defending and protecting them and your homeland where you all live for generations is pretty clear choice, at least for me. Now that would entirely change if Arthas knows who Medivh is and how easy it is for a prince to say: "hey everyone fuck this shit let's move across ocean there is maybe land west". Also I don't think that anyone at this point realizes true danger and scope of Scourge. Correct me if I am wrong but that's the feeling and understanding of what I get whenever I play this campaign.
More so, Medivh is the guy who brought the orcs to the lands of Azeroth to begin with. Blindly believing him would be a very great stretch for anyone, even for Anduin Lothar himself.
@@DesignerDave I am not saying that mass murder is okay, just the part about staying and fighting. Stratholme situation could definitely could have been handled way better by Arthas. Whole culling is just great show of slow decent in madness which in my opinion started at the end of previous mission when Uther comes to rescue.
Well he didn't stay and protect his homeland either, did he. He genocided his people, blamed Mal'Ganis and went on a revenge trip that was clearly a trap (as even Jaina says she told him in the following interlude). We don't know if there could've been another path but he definitely took the one that helped the enemy the most-like the random hobo mage told him.
@@ernestomarcos0103 At the start of mission after Stratholme it's already obvious Arthas is on downward spiral. I am not talking about that. I have two points and I will try to make myself clear. First I am speaking about realistic option (within Warcraft universe as a world not as a video game and about gameplay and that we know whole story) First hoe viable is to move a kingdom and moving kingdom I don't mean Arthas and some hundred people move to Kalimdor and spwan workers from a keep. Lordaron is huge kingdom we are probably speaking about hundreds thounsands people to move on another continet because stranger told you so. Moving from a land where you and whole generations grew up? I can't see that being viable even if Arthas believed him he can't realistically move everyone and that's still leaving whole lot of people to die there while you chill in Kalimdor. Second point I want to make and I am ot defending Arthas here just trying to put myself in his shoes. What's the other way to deal with Stratholme? Everyone said you can't do that but no one offered any other solution. To make it clear you are in front of city you know people will turn in zombies. So you either purge them or put city under quarantine while you come up with another solution. While you are thinking how to deal with it Mal'Ganis turns whole city in one huge swarm army that's way harder to deal with then if you did it piece by piece. Does Arthas have enough soldiers to put this huge city in quarantine? I am not telling he is correct just want to know what's that different way to deal with that. That's on Arthas human side of him, not to mention that he already started to go mad in mission before that, at very end when he is standing alone just before Uther arrives. This is just my opinion I am not necessarily correct just want to say that despite Arthas being wrong he is also not given some slack he tried his best at the given moment with what he had on top of creeping madness.
In the dungeon version of the Culling of Stratholme in WoW you also have Arthas wanting to mercy kill civilians before they have to suffer from transforming into a zombie and having to attack their loved ones. Even if the civilians were lost to the plague the most righteous thing to do is to put them out of their misery before things escalate quicker. You will also deny Mal'Ganis a much stronger army.
It doesn't deny Malganis anything. Dead bodies are just as good as living ones. Either way, it's not Arthas' place to decide for others how they go out.
@@wcure7254 Arthas should have absolutely known that the Undead threat was insurmountable at that stage. Uther and Jaina both literally told him this was not the way to defeat the undead. Even Medivh told him to stop and go West. Every mission prior to this gave every indication that dead people only result in MORE undead. If Arthas sent his entire army into Stratholme, the best case scenario would be a temporary halt in the spread of the plague in THIS ONE LOCATION. The worst case scenario? An entire new army of the undead made of Arthas and his soldiers' stitched together remains... If Arthas didn't know and understand this at the start of the mission, he should have known it by the end, but he was too far gone by that point... corrupted by the evil acts he had taken in his obsession with "winning." Mass murder should never have been an acceptable solution to this particular problem and a rational Arthas would have seen that... Just like Uther and Jaina did.
@@wcure7254 Jaina left and moved West with as many people as she could gather... Why? Because fighting Undead = More Undead. Pure and simple. You can never wipe them out completely. Are you desperate to justify Arathas' actions in Stratholme because you want to do some genocide of your own? Be honest...
@@wcure7254 man you should leave It. As astonishing as It sounds, Dave cant understand the storytelling of the most important character in his own game. I would have never belived this was the case if not reading his weak responses(on Many other comments as well), the last One absolutely baffling, "commit a genocide of your own" Bro, how can anyone take seriously someone that talks like that, the ol'classic "disagree with me? You are evil then". Strong Leaders can make hard decisions, arthas was, unlike Uther and Jaina. It's Easy to justify killing Monsters to protect your people, not as Easy to admit the killing must be brought on them to save what you can. And he hated that he had to Do It. He went so mad with rage for begin forced to kill his own, and he was left alone. Noone tried to confront or confort him. Alone he comverged all the hatred towards malganis, and stopped caring about the people he wanted to protect. That was his mistake. Thinking he should have gone overseas from the start is total bullshit. Imagine mobilizing a continent to traverse half world through Sea, for reason stated by Many other comments It wasnt an option. For how much It sounds arrogant Dave is ignorant, at best, so dont waste your time arguing with him.
All things considered, Arthas' reasoning was literally only that he wanted to prevent them from turning into undead due to being plagued. What the Scourge is capable to do to these corpses plays not role here since, as you can see in the ending, the corpses are being burnt so they can't be re-used because there are no corpses left anymore. It'd be way harder to kill an army of undead citizen rather than smacking some ill folks so while yes, it was done to make Arthas go nuts, his reasoning was still valid. There was no other solution. These citizens were doomed to die the second they consumed the infected goods, either way, there was no way out of this for them. Being turned into Zombies would have had long term repercussions, burning the corpses would have not. It's basically skipping one step. Yes, it's rather insignificant considering the size of the Scourge's army, but it was the most efficient way at this time. Big picture: pointless thing. Small picture: good thing. And that's what this all was about. Making Arthas see in small pictures to direct his path. This whole scenario was set up, yes, but all things considered, Arthas was right to handle the situation this way and if this would mean his downfall, he did the greatest of all sacrifices: himself. He fell so that his people may be safe. What path he was going down at this point wasn't clear to anyone. Nobody knew that Nerzhul was planning to use Arthas as his champion, nobody knew that Frostmourne was a tool of the Scourge. They knew it was cursed but they didn't that it belonged to the Lich King. So this entire downfall of Arthas was based on him being lured from one trap into another primarily by exploiting his humanity until it was taken from him. And this justifies all of his actions. It wasn't Uther who had to bear the crown, it wasn't Uther or Jaina who had been the target of the Scourge. Arthas had no choice here because all this was built and set up just for him. Like a carrot on a stick dangling in front of a Pig's nose. This weight of his crown and his sense of duty as a ruler were the crushing factor here. If he would be in Uther's position, it would have been way easier to just 'retreat', but Arthas had to watch his future being taken from him. That's a whole different angle. You cannot think in big pictures when the frame has been narrowed down under the weight of constant exploits. So long story short: Arthas has made the 'right' decision because the Scourge made sure that he could not see beyond the walls of Stratholme anymore.
I'm so sick and tired of replying to these. Read the description and look through the comments. I counter every point you've made at least a dozen times by now because it's the same tired and incorrect arguments. If you really can't think of anything other than mass indiscriminate slaughter as a solution to a plague situation, try a creativity workshop and therapy.
@@DesignerDave The point that I'm trying to made here is is the empathic path here. There is no therapy in the world that can make you re-think a given situation in realtime when you have a city in front if you set up to be a ticking time bomb. Yes, mass murder is always wrong but try to see it that way when someone would capture you only to make you see how a murderer would slice the throats of your family right in front of you. Would seeking therapy be the first thing you do or would you first try to break free and crush the skull of the murderer? That's the point. Arthas had no choice here because his humanity, his emotions, the thing that makes humans human, including their flaws was getting in the way here. There was no time to re-think because everything was set up to make him act quickly. That's why he rejected Uther's and Jaina's advice. So don't ever dare to tell me that I'm supporting mass murder, because I'm not. What I'm trying to show you here is what Arthas saw through his eyes and why it's impossible to break free from it given the circumstances. His actions ultimately were wrong but ONLY IF YOU SEE THE BIG PICTURE which he was not able to. That's what sparks this whole controversity. There is one party looking at it from the big picture which leads to the obvious conclusion that it's wrong and pointless. And then there is the party which sees it through Arthas' eyes and tries to come up with ideas how it could have been avoided with no solution in sight because they do not have the information they need. That's why there is team 'Arthas did nothing wrong' and team 'Omegalul seek therapy'. Two factions evaluating the scenario from two perspectives which both lead to different conclusions. One is fully based on rationalism with having access to all informations they need - the other one is trying to make sense out of the limited amount of information they have. That's how 100% of all conflicts come to be. In this case it's 'What the writer wants you to understand' (killing bad, Arthas is at a point of no return) vs 'How the player feels for the character' ("yeah fuck, Arthas got bamboozled but tried to make the best out of it") And because I'm not here to wage a war with you: I'm thankful for getting your attention and giving me the chance to talk with you about all that. And while I'm a little bit disappointed that you're starting to toss arround that 'lol go seek a creative workshop' by just doing a if (statement == stuffThatIAlreadyMentioned) comparison, I was still getting quite excited to talk with you so thanks again for your time. Because I'm getting a feeling that this here is gonna be stuck in a loop of blasting arguments against each other's head, I'd say we respectfully cut it here and remain with 'We both suck because we're humans' :) Hope there wont be bad blood between us and that we can get into and maintain great conversations in the future!
@@NorthstriderGaming Alright, I'll engage since you're not bandwagoning and seem to actually believe this stuff. You also didn't mention the "trolley" problem which is good, because those people don't understand what the trolley problem is. While Arthas BELIEVED he had no choice here he absolutely did have a choice. Many choices in fact, all of which were better than indiscriminately murdering the entire population of Stratholme which consisted of SOME plagued villagers and some who were NOT plagued. I believe it was even one of Asmongold's viewers who recommended a mass evacuation in a tower defense like situation where you had to only allow unplagued citizens to pass through while periodically hunting down Malganis with a squad and fending off the other undead hordes. If you evacuate 100 unplagued, and no plagued get through, you win. I call this, the Uther version of The Culling. But in a world of high fantasy there are a myriad of other solutions far far superior to throwing Arthas and his army into what should be (based on previous experiences, chiefly Hearthglen) a death trap. Yes, the survival odds of Arthas in a real version of an undead assault on Stratholme would be somewhere between 1 and 0 out of 100. The last time Arthas tried to hold out against an all out undead attack, he would have died without Uther and his Paladins... and Arthas had already sent Uther away. The whole point of The Culling, is that ARTHAS could not see any other solutions to this problem than mass murder... It was a reflection of his personality... His brashness, his arrogance, his myopia in seeing the larger picture... Which led him on this path towards evil acts and refusing to consider any other possibilities. So when I see other people saying they'd have done the same in his situation... It's a good indication they have similar traits to the fatally flawed young prince in question. Which makes me deeply concerned for their mental well-being. "But it's just a video game." Yes, and video games can teach us a lot about ourselves... That's the beauty of the medium. It makes you complicit in the actions of its protagonists, and allows you agency in deciding how things can play out (sometimes). The Culling is something I wanted players to feel bad about doing... So I get quite concerned when people talk about how "of course we killed the villagers before they would turn, it's so much easier." As one deeply disturbed individual did, whom is now hiding in my Discord and hunting for information to try and use against me... Weird champ...
No, in the Culling, the villagers were already infected so they'd become zombies anyway. If you destroy a house and let them stay out without killing them, they turn into zombies. The villagers were already lost. Arthas killing them, also burns their bodies as seen in the cinematic after the mission with Jaina, so the bodies can't be used to be turned into the undead. Also to prevent spreading the plague further. You also start the mission before Mal'Ganis shows up.
Arthas showed a lack of humanity, though it's hard to blame him. He dealt with the soon-to-be undead before they could become an even greater threat but became less human in the process. It was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, and unsurprisingly, by the end of it all, he was damned. I still don't see Arthas as a villan, just someone who was dealt a bad hand. I can't blame him, which is exactly why the writing was so good.
Malganis was there waiting the whole time. Remember that it was entirely orchestrated. He never even cared what happened at Stratholme as long as Arthas went mad with vengeance. The Culling was what The Lich King wanted Arthas to do.
The villagers were already lost, so there was no reason to kill them. The plague was already spread everywhere so there was no reason to kill them. The purpose of killing them was to turn Arthas evil. It did not do anything positive for his Kingdom. There was no benefit to the slaughter. None.
@@DesignerDave I can see that Arthas was manipulated, he was impulsive and he didn't listen to Medivh, but Medivh himself could have done a much better job of trying to explain himself. > The plague was already spread everywhere so there was no reason to kill them Can we agree that if you want to kill the undead, it's better to kill them and burn their bodies before they turn?
I can only blame Arthas for being impulsive and YOLO-ing Frostmourne when he knew it was cursed. Now did he even remotely know what that curse meant? I don't think so, so I can only really blame Arthas for being naive.
This ended up lengthy, but bare with me (though I am quite drunk). I have come across the idea that Arthas did nothing wrong only recently and replayed the human campaign with that in mind. I do not know the storyline canon (i.e. just found out that zombies become ghouls over time, which in hindsight makes sense) so please give me a little leeway as I am not an avid supporter of the theory but have some thoughts that might be valid here. When looking at the choices Arthas made during the campaign, they did ultimately take him down an evil path, but aside from his inherent hard-headedness and blind devotion to doing the 'right' thing, his choices were clear and logical - and by that I mean that they were not wrong per se. The point you have raised about the Abominations being stitched from dead bodies and the fact that Arthas should have understood that it was futile to decimate the city for this reason is something I didn't consider before. However, the destruction of the city has lead to Lordaeron holding dominion over the city post-culling and burning the bodies before they can be used to create Abominations. That is, in essence, exactly what Arthas's intent was - to make sure that his subjects do not become a part of the army of the undead; and that is exactly what he achieved. We see in the inter-mission cutscene that the survivors are burning the dead bodies beyond the point of resurrection or any form of functional assembly. Be it as cruel as it may, the people of Stratholme were doomed to be a part of the undead army and Arthas did stop it. I assumed that the brilliance of this story writing was the fact that the choice which benefits Humanity the most was inherently cruel and lead to destruction and death of the innocents. When I played this mission as a 12-year old I was fascinated by the fact that it made me question what is right and wrong rather than telling me the answer. Are sacrifices, even seemingly evil ones, sometimes necessary for the greater good? And although we see that this decision was made by a man on a doomed path who slowly lost the grip on his values and morality in favour of his ambition which slowly crippled his heart and judgement, the question the player is asked to consider is whether making a decision in a lesser vs. greater evil situation should even be made. I know that ultimately Warcraft is only a game and people's passions run hot the more they play and love the characters that make up the world. To me, however, this was a lesson in difficult choices - if you act, it is wrong; if you don't act, it is also wrong. There is no winning solution here (the game forces you to make a choice there and then) and thus it makes you question the choices that you yourself make in real life. Sometimes there is no choice that allows you to walk away with your dignity intact. Uther, the Lightbringer walked away. Jaina walked away. Together with their armies. The blood of the people who would have been slain by the undead from the city would have been on their hands. And should any of those be, inevitably, turned undead then the blood of the people that those beings kill would be too. And so on. Arthas is the reason why Jaina and Uther remained pure characters rather than those who selfishly refused to save more lives because it felt wrong to them personally at the moment and they lacked the foresight to make a decision. This is similar to the young Hitler conundrum. Had you moved back in time and met the 12-year old him, knowing that no matter what you do you could not prevent him from causing the Holocaust unless you kill him, would you? It's such a difficult question and in this case I can entirely see why people say Arthas did the right thing. In summary to the points I took from the video above: 1. Ravagers Of The Plague Mission: Corpses can be sewn together to form abominations: Culling of Stratholme prevented that by killing the doomed people and burning their corpses afterward, thus making the city a wasted effort for The Scourge. 2. Uther's 'The undead ranks are being bolstered every time our warrior falls in battle: Culling of Stratholme prevented that by burning the bodies afterward, having pushed the undead back. 3. Arthas gets a warning from Medivh himself: Arthas is not familiar with Medivh, nor is he a mage familiar with the mystical arts, or however a paladin of his statute would call those premonitions & Jaina's advice. One could call this stupidity - which is a perfectly valid point - but not trusting a 'prophet' is hardly an evil choice. For all Arthas knew he could have been a powerful shapeshifting necromancer with a goal to stop Arthas and that is why Jaina sensed power about him. Either way, this is not a good vs. evil point. 4. Killing of people of Stratholme will do literally nothing but (Arthas) does it anyway: (Basically the main body of this post. Culling of Stratholme allowed Humanity to hold the dominion over the city and ensure that the bodies of the infected can neither be resurrected nor resewn into Abominations. A difficult and questionable decision, but one ultimately making the Humanity's battle easier) 5. Petty competition with the Dreadlord: (The competition with Mal'Ganis was petty. Egotical and self-centred. This is where Arthas's character turns for the worse and loses my vote of confidence. Whereas the Culling of Stratholme could have been defended as a logical choice - which I believe it ultimately was - this becomes a turning point. From a heroic Prince who takes on a burden of making an impossibly difficult decision Arthas turns into a little kid who wants revenge and is willing to sacrifice anything to get it. It's a turning point and THIS is the first evil (or selfish) choice he makes. I'm sure that others who have more knowledge and understanding of the Lore will be able to add more, but these are my five cents. Thanks if you've read it all and I hope my thoughts broadened your thoughts. Hope you have an awesome day! Slava Ukarini!
The only reason they were allowed to burn the bodies is because Malganis had accomplished his goal of corrupting Arthas. They did not want to kill him... Ultimately, you're justifying his actions by the outcome, a culled city... Mass genocide... But if The Lich King had wanted Arthas dead, the whole thing would have gone very differently. You win the mission by corrupting Arthas via genocide, not by defeating Malganis.
@@DesignerDave Thanks for replying, Dave. I know that in this case I am playing the devil's advocate so the points I make are more of an attempt to justify actions that are fundamentally tainted by evil and pose difficult questions. Had it not been the case, I don't think people would even question Arthas. I believe that the very moral ambiguity that's brought up by other players makes the choices we witness in the campaign that much more powerful and important to discuss. I can definitely imagine the scenario in which Arthas is killed by the undead - it shouldn't be too difficult given the premise of the previous missions either (such as the defence of... was it Heartglen? The 30 minute defence mission. Apologies if I get the names wrong; I'm not great with those). Neither would I see it as too much of a stretch to see Mal'Ganis using Frostmourne to steal Arthas's soul at the start of the game and kill King Therenas on Lich King's orders, had it been a strategic move that pushed the undead forward and lead to Kel'Thuzad staying 'alive' and being able to command the Scourge in its early to mid stages with Lordaeron in utter dismay. I understand that (thought maybe I am going against the lore which I don't know off by heart, so if you know better please correct me). In the post above I am justifying Arthas's actions by the immediate and perceived positional outcome because I believe that in the end this is the only real way we can make judgements (be it in real life or a game). Perhaps it's my fault for seeing too much into a story or trying to taint a fantasy game with too much realism, but to me the question posed by this mission was an important one. Perhaps, the creators of the story and the mission (a humble bow to you with my 12-year-old-self's thanks) have created something that was not fully anticipated during the creation of the story and the stage of the game. As Arthas is just a person who only sees events right in front of him and has limited access to information about the entire world (like we all do), should he choose what makes sense in the moment then fundamentally his choices make logical sense. The same criticism that is applied to him in this mission can be applied to Uther and Jaina for the reasons I raised in my previous post - thus undermining the good and evil approach to the entire situation. Whether or not this was the Lich King's will or not is irrelevant at this point as Arthas has no idea of it. It's kind of like saying 'well, if he knew this was the case all along he would have acted differently.' That is true and he most certainly would. But at the time he didn't. The same way we do not. We have scraps of information to work with and the question of whether a choice is ultimately good or evil comes down to, I believe, a combination of what we want to achieve and what we know at the time. This is exactly what Arthas has to work with. He wants to achieve the goal of saving his people without the long-term knowledge of the Lich King's plan (I don't want to be that guy, but we are in the exactly same situation with Ukraine. -disclaimer: I DO NOT BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING. THIS IS JUST FOR ARGUMENT'S SAKE - If Putin is doing evil crap right now, but in long term it means saving the world, would his current actions be good or evil?) This is the question we face in the real life and as the characters are plunged into the world that limits their knowledge, we have to ask ourselves what is right and wrong in the same way. I have a feeling that this is what makes the characters of Warcraft 3 relatable. I believe that realising this problem's fundamentals is what makes people question whether what Arthas did is right or wrong. All I am trying to point to is that the question posed by the mission is far more complex than what we may initially think - and perhaps people who created the missions have another opportunity to see the hidden depth of the work they produces that they themselves haven't even realised at the time. Perhaps I am wrong but if that wasn't the case, would there be a community questioning the morals of the main character? Anyway, great work Dave and thanks for sharing. Hopefully a good and insightful discussion will come of this.
@@piotr8821 War is never the solution to final peace. War only creates more war, more bitter rivalries, more wounded soldiers with vendettas, more broken families with hate in their hearts. Culling the population of Stratholme was wrong from every point of view and even the mission tells you this. What are you doing in The Culling? You're in a mass murder competition with Malganis... The only way to win is not to play. But obviously that's not a viable solution in a linear story like Warcraft III. I'm glad that people have sympathy for Arthas, but I freak out when people have empathy for him and say they'd do the same thing... That's why I had to make this video.
@@DesignerDave Hi again, War is a disgusting wheel of mutual hatred, pain and suffering. It is never a solution to peace. At its best it breeds generations of resentment, at its worst it leads to cruel decimation of the innocents. But this was not an act of war on behalf of Arthas. Undead and Humans are not at war - this is a straight up cruel genocide and Kel-thuzad makes it clear by saying 'cleansing the land of the living, of course'. Arthas was put in a situation where innocents were being slaughtered by the thousands and he had to make a choice whether he is okay with his people being murdered and turned into the undead causing even more death and suffering in perpetuity or stand up, make a difficult and fundamentally cruel choice of sacrificing some now in order to save more later. What happened to his character was a different issue - he did it out of spite and pride, but ultimately his choice, no matter the motivations, would be beneficial to the people elsewhere. It would be great if the Undead and Humans could sit down and negotiate terms of truce. But, the campaign clearly portrays the undead as blood-thirsty, mindless beings that seek nothing but death and destruction - even at their own sacrifice. It is not the same as the real world. I think you are missing the point raised by those who point out that Arthas was doing the logical thing. His actions had an actual impact of preventing the Lordaeron from being weakened further (would you rather face an army of 10,000 or 12,000? Those extra 2000 will slaughter innocent civilians and by walking away and choosing to not make the difficult choice at the time you are responsible for all the death and pain those 2000 would have caused. Just because you walked away it doesn't mean your choice didn't have consequences. On the contrary. You, by making that very choice, have lead to murder and slaughter - all those deaths you could have prevented, but you didn't. Just because you didn't see them happen does not mean that they didn't. This is why people look at the cruelty of the Culling and point out that it saved many more lives later on). War in real life and the genocidal situation of WC3 are nothing alike. But there is one point that you seem to take for granted and I believe this is the main point of contention that Arthas's supporters raise: Walking away from a conflict leads to consequences just as much as choosing to stay in it does. Had the West chosen to walk away from WWII and ignore the evil done in the name of Holocaust then they would be just as guilty of it. Unless you believe that Hitler should have been allowed to do as he pleased, which I don't think you would support. Arthas, when posed with the same question acted whilst Uther and Jaina walked away. All three of them are responsible for death - only so it happens that Arthas took all the blame and his actions directly helped Humanity. People see this as fundamentally unfair since they all share the same blame but Arthas is condemned for it despite doing something that ultimately lead to saving lives. But Uther and Jaina choosing to allow the Scourge to bolster their armies and cause even more pain and suffering are fully to blame for all the death that would have followed. Frankly, even as a kid I was upset by the fact that Uther, the man who was supposed to be the righteous one, chose to not fight for the innocents of the city (By the way, it would have made the campaign even more intriguing - having Arthas and Mal'Ganis try to slaughter the city with Uther and Jaina trying to evacuate the people would make for an even more awesome mission in my opinion). Prince or no prince, being suspended or not, Uther did not stay there to help people but went away after making empty threats and 'washed his hands' of the culling. A very convenient thing to do when someone else makes the difficult choice and takes the blame. His actions, had Arthas not done what he did, would have lead to more death and suffering. This is the famous train conundrum. You stand on a bridge over train tracks. A train is racing out of control and can't be stopped with 5 people behind the bridge tied to the tracks. They will inevitably be killed... unless... you personally push off a very big guy onto the tracks and derail the train. This is the only way to save the five lives. And I believe this is ultimately the question the Culling of Stratholme raises. Would you get your hands dirty and kill one person in order to save five? Or would you walk away, condemning five people to death, knowing that you could have done something to save them. Sympathy for Arthas and empathy for his actions is one thing. The logical thing to do in order to save lives is another. Walking away is NOT the easy way out. It is one of many choices that leads to vast and severe consequences - and just because you aren't there to witness them, it doesn't mean they don't happen. So no, 'The only way to win is not to play' is completely wrong and short-sighted in this case. And no, 'Culling the population of Stratholme was wrong from every point of view' is not true - regardless of what the campaign says. Strategically it was the correct choice because it made the later fight easier. Morally, long-term, it was the right choice because it saved more lives than it took. I have to be honest - I am a taken aback by the fact that you choose to ignore the points made by numerous people and resort to seeing this as a black and white situation where in fact there are so many shades of grey that need to be seriously considered and not just shunned aside. Perhaps the initial intention of the mission was to show the fall of a prince. But equally well, perhaps its creators did not consider the implications of the actions as thoroughly to begin with and the fact that so many people keep raising this is not a reason to freak out or being saddened but rather a testimony and invitation to see the moral complexities of the issue in the first place. Just because people disagree with your point and say things that initially feel wrong is not a reason to disregard those voices, but an opportunity to see the world in a different light and an invitation to question your own approach. Having said that, I wouldn't have culled Stratholme :)
@@DesignerDave I've gotta ask how Arthas should have known that the plan was to corrupt him instead of turning everyone into undead? Also you have repeatedly said that they were gonna die and turn undead so there was no reason to kill them because they will still become undead right? Except from what I remember if you kill them they dont turn, meaning killing them early literally prevents them from becoming a threat to anyone else. If you wanted there actually be no reason to kill them they should have at least allways turned after death.
I'd argue that, even if the corpses could be harvested and made into abominations and/or reanimated, the Scourge would have to gather them all up to do that, and also expend magic reanimating them, which is time-consuming, and that magic might be better spent elsewhere. But as it stands at the beginning of the mission, they've already been infected and are in the process of becoming zombies; Arthas destroying them before that happens sets the undead back a bit, and forces the Scourge to commit more resources in order to take advantage of all the corpses left behind. In a lot of ways, I think getting rid of the immediate, short-term threat is more effective, especially when the short-term threat here is a city's worth of people being made into a horde of zombies and potentially ghouls. He's bleeding the Scourge for resources here and denying them a source of new fodder that was pretty much otherwise guaranteed. Since he also trashed a lot of Stratholme in the process, it's less hospitable as a den for the mortal Cult of the Damned and less viable as a stronghold for the Scourge. They would have to put further resources towards fixing it again if they wanted to capture and fortify it.
Thought about this again at work. I'll go on further to argue that Arthas not trusting Medivh is completely justified and logical. You're the prince of Lordaeron, and someone coming across as a crazy person approaches you and tells you that to save your people from a threat you fully believe you can defeat, you must uproot your entire civilization and leave your kingdom behind to head west across a perilous sea to a place you've probably only heard of. Not only does this sound like an insanely difficult thing to do, it's a huge gamble. Who knows if Medivh is telling the truth? Does he even know it's Medivh? If he does, he surely knows about Medivh's corruption and demise. I certainly wouldn't trust him. And if not, why WOULD he trust him? It's some stranger telling you the end of the world is coming, when to you, it's another threat to face. It's easy to say that Arthas made the wrong choice when we, the player, know what the story is and what's going to happen, and what's to come. I personally feel that, from a practical and moral perspective, Arthas did the right thing culling Stratholme and putting those people out of their misery. I'd personally rather be killed than turned into an unwilling slave forced to watch myself become a monster and turn on my loved ones. Later on, in Northrend, that's a different story. But the culling was definitely the right call.
@@BigBoneBusiness Medivh's plan was just shoddy writing. He could've petitioned the Silver Hand or the Quel'dorei. He could've aided Arthas somewhere like in Hearthglen. He could've just warned Thrall and Jaina about the other on Kalimdor and told them not to fight each-other.
I disagree. First of all, listening some random mage that shows up one day in court (the cinematic) telling you to abandon your homeland and go west is just beyond reasonable. At that point they didnt even see any undead yet, arthas is busy cleaning up rogue orcs (blackrock and roll). There wouldnt be any political will because the nobility would have to abandon their wealth (land holdings) to go through with a plan for something that seems insignificant. Now when medivh appears in front of arthas it has more credibility, since there are already undead, but at that point they only have seen a few undead and it seems like they can contain it. Im sure that Uther would tell him it would be insane to abandon the kingdom and flee west. Just like he tells arthas purging the city is insane. They managed to fight back the orcs (orcs were strong enough to defeat stormwind in WC1), so why couldnt they fight the undead? We of course know its impossible, but they dont. In the culling you cna see in the end of the mission that the bodies are cremated. So they cant be turned into abominations. Also, following medivh plan couldnt have worked either. 1) they would need to build more ships, since they obviously dont have enough for all of lordaeron. That takes time 2) sick people would still sneak on board since they dont want to be left behind, meaning entire ships could turn into zombie massacres 3) what food would they eat? They cant farm since they are building ships, and the grain has been poisoned. 4) the cult of the damned was around. They could have infected the grain that was put aside as food for the journey, they could have snuck on board and then start over in kalimdor, they couldve burnt the ships or sabotage them in some way. And when they arrive at kalimdor they would have to somehow stat enough farms to be able to feed the entire population. You would have to send a group colonists every year to cultivate a bit more land so they can sustain more people coming over. If I would make the all I wouldve culled the city, enforce cremation of bodies (instead of burials) kingdomwide, and ask dalaran to focus on developing anti undead magic. Also I wouldnt piss off uther and chase malganis to the north pole.
You can disagree, but you're wrong. All your hypotheticals are irrelevant because the goal was not to wipe out humanity. Undead need humans to make undead. The entire point of the Culling is to corrupt Arthas. You win the mission by mass murdering people and corrupting him... Once the goal is accomplished, Malganis leaves. Stratholme was never their goal. Medivh was correct. They should have fled.
@@DesignerDave I think the problem here is a difference between how you approach the story. If you take medivhs word as the word of the author, then yes, going across the ocean would work. Because medivh says it would. But if you look at the world with its own rules and limitations, then that suggestion is just impossible. I think the people said that arthas was right follow the same logic. With what arthas knew, the culling made sense. Only if you know prophet is medivh and he speaks the truth does the alternative make ense.
@@anonvideo738 If you don't know that mass murder is wrong, I don't know what to tell you. Uther told Arthas it's wrong. Jaina told Arthas it's wrong. So even if you ignore the mage you have everyone you ever knew and loved warning you not to do this... It's fine to have sympathy for Arthas' situation, and to even understand why he did what he did... but if you think he was CORRECT, you're bat-shit bonkers crazy and should probably go to a psychologist immediately before you start genociding. ;)
@@wcure7254 Hahahaha, nice strawman. Here's the real situation. You (Deranged Psychopath): Mass murders an entire town in a psychopathic kill countoff with another serial killer. Me: Moves everyone I know and love to another continent to survive. You're "a deranged psychopath mass murdering serial killer scumbag." :D
@@wcure7254 We're not moving them anywhere. We're abandoning Stratholme... Because they're ALREADY DEAD... Look, you don't have to agree with me, but I am the designer of the level and was part of the Warcraft III team and I've explained... succinctly the authorial intent here... And if you disagree with it, you're the delusional one. Just understand that... Mass murder... Not a good solution under any circumstances.
Had to come back here to remind myself that my favorite villain in all of gaming was an accident. I love Arthas for the tragedy of his story. The difficult choices he had to make in the name of the greater good. He killed hundreds of innocents to save their souls and potentially his kingdom, because they would all die and bolster the undead if he stood by doing nothing to save them. Effectively being made to choose the lesser of two evils time after time. Then the slow downfall due to the weight of these decisions on his worldview, which made him obsessive, jaded, and far too willing to do horrible things. Unfortunately though apparently none of that was intended. Instead, from the designer's view, his decisions were simply objectively wrong and Arthas was just a horrible person who didn't really care about doing the right thing during these moments... Just another bland black and white villain.
Wow, what a ridiculous misreading of what was obviously laid out in the story... No, Arthas BELIEVED he was doing what was right. BUT HE WAS WRONG. See the difference? When you decide to mass murder an entire city before you even step foot inside it to see what's happening... That's RASH and IRRATIONAL... It's WRONG... Get a grip and stop licking Asmongold's boots.
@@politicsandart7994 No, he did NOT have that information. He literally says "Oh no" meaning... he just understood this... "we're too late..." And what is he seeing at that moment in time? The entrance of Stratholme and a few sick villagers. And again, we know they weren't ALL plagued, we know that for a fact from the interlude that comes after... But he says "This entire CITY must be purged..." So you can't pretend he was only killing plagued people because that's not what he says he's going to do... You cannot win this argument because the story is VERY clear if you pay attention to the details and writing and understand what has happened to that point in the story... Anyone pretending otherwise either hasn't played it or is taking the "omniscient" viewpoint and trying to justify Arthas' BAD and WRONG decision with information that comes after the fact.
@@politicsandart7994 So you haven't played Warcraft 3 then. Okay... In the next scene in the interlude which takes place inside Stratholme, Uther and Jaina are standing in the wreckage of the city watching UNPLAGUED (non-green) civilians burning corpses. Proving both that Arthas didn't stick around to finish that job, and that there were unplagued citizens to begin with. Regardless, Arthas makes the decision BEFORE he enters the city and it is NEW information for him. It's very obvious from the intro cinematic of The Culling so there's no way to argue around this.
@Galten Not a star wars fan so don't know shit about kylo, and barely remember korra because it couldn't hold a candle to the first series. Villains that I think are well written include, Illidan(arguably was always an antihero, not villain) and my apparently wrong interpretation of Arthas, Tywin Lannister, Joaquin's joker, and the Michael + Lucifer combo up until season 5 of supernatural. The running theme here is that they are conflicted characters with nuance that adds up to more than bad guy do bad thing cause bad.
I’ve always seen Heartglen’s mission as the game’s way of telling us that if Arthas’ forces were almost wiped out by a village and a bunch of farms, doing nothing at Stratholme, the 2nd most important city of the kingdom, would cause the situation to completely spiral out of control and seal the fate of Lordaeron. Besides, the corpses are burned in the cutscene after the culling, so I don’t believe that they could be raised as undead I don’t think it’s rational for a prince to simply abandon his kingdom due to a warning from a mage that not even Antonidas recognised and listened to. Besides, Medivh didn’t really tell them to flee the undead, who are described as a force that advances unrelentingly, can raise up any creature, and doesn’t even need rest. Just to stand their ground where it mattered the most and cooperating with other races Arthas is impulsive, but the game portrays him as someone who approaches common villagers, cares about their well-being, believes in the Light, ans is always willing to lead the troops even against terrible odds. Vengeance obviously was part of the reason why he pursued malganis, but this isn’t incompatible with the idea that this was fueled by what he did to his kingdom. In fact, this is exactly that he mentions to Muradin when he tries to talk him out of the path of vengeance, and this idea is repeated when he claims Frostmourne, asking the spirits to help him save his people in exchange of any price And we have to add at least one final piece: the lack of information. Arthas was sent on a mission that basically no one took seriously (human campaign first cinematic), and he suddenly finds a terrible plague that can wipe the kingdom. No one knew basically anything significant about it, but Arthas knew that it spread fast, and how dangerous it was throughout his journey. He pursued Kelthuzad at first because he saw it as a main figure, and later on, he makes the same mistake pursuing Malganis, but Arthas doesn’t really has any way of knowing that everything was a trap orchestrated by the Lich King and the Burning Legion. He just found himself on a catastrophic scenario and had very limited information When people say that “Arthas did nothing wrong” they don’t mean that the culling wasn’t an atrocity. Just that the game gives us enough hints to at least understand why he did it, making it an extreme morally grey decision, which is what makes it great as a story element
1. Hearthglen demonstrated that Arthas on his own could only hold out against the undead. If Stratholme would be worse, then Arthas was being even stupider than we thought when he decided to go it alone against Mal'ganis. 2. The corpses were not burned by Arthas, they were being burned by the survivors of Stratholme, demonstrating that Arthas was so eager for his vengeance he didn't stay to finish the job, and that there were indeed unplagued villagers in Stratholme. 3. Arthas didn't have to abandon his kingdom, but murdering his own people to save them is exactly the sort of thing a madman does as he goes off the deep end and is crushed by his responsibilities. Hence why The Culling was a demonstration of Arthas' descent into evil and madness. 4. Arthas cares about his people... UP UNTIL we get to The Culling. That's the point. It's in the name... "The Culling" which has its definition in killing sick FARM ANIMALS... That's the mindset Arthas adopts here to justify mass murder. It's a descent into evil, and it's spelled out in so many ways that apparently there are still people who miss the whole point of how the narrative gets to this moment. 5. "Saving his people" is the thin veneer of moral justification Arthas has left when he takes up the sword. Everyone believes they're the hero in their own story, but Arthas, at the start of The Culling, stepped off the path of heroism into darkness. Him taking up Frostmourne was the final eschewing of that humanity... and what does he do next? Murders his own father and causes the fall of his Kingdom... See how it's a slow transition over time that culminates in the act of complete betrayal of his people? That's the whole point of the narrative. 6. Yes, Arthas had very limited information and he broke down and started making really bad decisions... to the point he stepped off the path of good and delved into evil at The Culling, and then more so with each successive act until he became TRULY UNREDEEMABLY EVIL! That's the point of the story... That's the story that is told. Maybe if Arthas had more information or a less strict mentor he'd have done something differently... and maybe maybe if Hitler had become a successful artist we wouldn't have had WW2... but it played out as it did... 7. There is nothing morally grey about The Culling. Everything from the title, the story, the cinematics, the dialogue, and the mechanics of winning the mission, all tell you that this is evil and bad and not good at all. The only reason people were confused at all is because you HAVE to do it to move forward, and our brains are very very good at justifying things that we've done as the "right" thing to do. Even when it's totally and utterly wrong.
I can't believe the guy that designed the level is wrong. I'll edit this in as above is not productive to the argument: So instead of culling strat, you suggest they just let the city fall. For what? To starve it out? You mean to say that the undead are limited to strat and cannot leave? That's likely the only way your "just leave it alone" approach could ever succeed. Or maybe you just think that it won't bolster forces. If that's the case then you should check out how the undead work its wild. You can't just make a wild claim like this. I've noticed down in other comments you just say "Just find another way". I sincerely hope you aren't over other employees with a viewpoint like that.
Yes, he needed to find another way. He's the Prince... He could have rallied the mages of Dalaran, rallied the elves of Quel'thalas, etc... Gotten them altogether to find a new solution now that he understood how serious the threat was. But instead, he went on a civilian killing spree trying to one-up Malganis and then chased him to Northrend. Arthas was wrong to commit mass murder. The only way someone could justifiably say "Arthas did nothing wrong in The Culling" is if they only waited until after people turned into zombies to kill them. That's the only place where there's ambiguity in that mission in terms of where Arthas was at on his journey to evil.
The Undead in WC3's rules aren't like a Romero movie. They need to be raised through necromancy with the Lich King's army making needing a magical plague which needed plague cauldrons placed around Lordaeron. Had Stratholme failed and Arthas managed to rally the Alliance (or its remaining members) the Scourge would've had a deep setback if not been crushed.
I believe they (or should I say, you?) should've made it more clear that he was wrong in the game. Maybe after the Culling, there would be some evidence that people have found a way to cure the plague, so if Arthas just waited, it would've been fine. Or maybe, you should've shown that not everyone is actually infected, but Arthas has no way of knowing and just kills everyone (delay the actual transformation significantly, so the player can't afford to wait, but if they do, they would see that not everyone transforms. Maybe even randomize the time to mess with the player further.). Or maybe give a hint that Mal'ganis doesn't really want to win this “contest”.
But Arthas didn't just kill everyone. He had their bodies burnt too, so there's not going to be anything to raise, and the Scourge doesn't have to wait for every zombie to be turned into a ghoul, they don't have to wait to stitch them together into abominations. When Stratholme falls, one of Lordaeron's largest cities will be turned undead. That's a huge army to contain, let alone defeat.
designer dave shoud play "his" games a bit more. they were burning the bodies at the end so no undead would be raised. and i didn't kill any humans, i let the all turn first. arthas was a hothead prince willing to prove himself. coming from the previous mission where you had to defend a small village against undead, and failing due to overwhelming numbers, he got scared and maybe traumatized. stratholme one of the bigger cities and would produced endless hordes of zombies and would have meant the end of all eastern kingdoms.
You can watch my playthrough... Nice shitty dig though. Regardless of what Arthas believed... he was WRONG to mass murder civilians. That's all I'm saying. The idea that he was "correct" to mass slaughter civilians at Stratholme is absolutely antithetical to everything the story has setup here. That's my point... And if you missed that before, fine... but you can't miss it now because I've laid it all out.
@@DesignerDave WHY is it "wrong" to mass murder people turning into fucking zombies? Do you even think about the things you are saying? Your feelings mean NOTHING when inaction will lead to more innocent deaths and the possibility of losing EVEN MORE cities due to a mass invasion of fucking zombies. Try thinking with your BRAIN instead of your childing feelings for once, it will make you a better writer.
"Arthus killed civilians" Whom he believed and seemingly were all infected and going to turn undead, escape out from strat, seek more people, and kill or infect them. "Just run away, or you bolster the undeads forces" Undead don't just infinitely keep getting back up, within the game and the lore you kill a zombie it's gone, the infection was being spread by the cultists and the dreadlords, not only was it Arthus's Duty to stop it, but it was Uther's as well and he just peaces out. "Jiana and Uther were right to just leave" To offer no other solutions and just abandon Arthus in the situation he was stuck with and pretend Stat was not their problem or responsibility was not only cowardly but a huge betrayal of their friend and their kingdom. "In the original version of The Culling" Sorry but your company put out what they put out. At least you seemingly deleted the video calling people deranged lunatics who need therapy along with the comment claiming they might "hurt someone". And you also agree that if Uther stuck around they could of stomped the entire situation and he was abandoning Arthus to die, thus bolstering the undead's forces, thus making Uther a giant idiot. Uther's friends pushed him away and lead him down his path, he made terrible decisions, and didn't allow himself to look past his reactionary decisions, but at the same time the wise paladin and wise beyond her years mage couldn't think of anything better to do than just abandon arthus to fight alone.
1. Arthas decided to kill the entire city of Stratholme based on seeing a few civilians at the entrance and a couple crates of grain. He had NO idea what was actually going on inside. Moreover, there's nothing in Warcraft 3 that indicates zombies spread the plague. All zombies come from infected grain in Warcraft 3... 2. Undead do keep coming back. Zombies can become ghouls, ghouls can become abominations, and even burned corpses can become skeletons. 3. Uther did not "peace out." I guess you haven't played The Culling, but when Uther says he won't massacre an entire city, it's Arthas who accuses him of treason and sends him packing with his entire Paladin order. Arthas SENT him away BY COMMAND... When Jaina saw Arthas was beyond reason, she left too. 4. If Arthas had simply said "we'll save who we can, but anyone afflicted by the plague must be purged," MAYBE Uther and Jaina would have stayed... But that's not what he said. He said he was going to purge THE ENTIRE CITY... based on nothing but a few boxes of grain and some coughing villagers at the entrance. 5. Uther is not "a giant idiot." He's lawful good, and he refused to break his oath to protect his people, but when he was accused of treason and sent home by Arthas, he had to obey that command because it did no harm. 6. Arthas is a gigantic idiot for not stopping to think about things, and that's the entire point of his character. He is rash and impetuous and did not think things through before acting, and as a result, his actions at Stratholme DOOMED ALL OF LORDAERON! So from any perspective, Arthas did the wrong thing at Stratholme. He did not stop the spread of the undead scourge and in fact handed his kingdom over directly to the Lich King by his actions there.
@DesignerDave Earlier in this video's comments you said that Arthas shouldn't have killed off Stratholme since among other things the plagued citizens could seek to become Undead and Arthas shouldn't take that chance from them. Is it really the case from your view that Undeath in WC3 was worth trying for Lordaeron's citizens (already the case enough of them were willing considering the Cult of the Damned)?
@@galten7361 Maybe they hadn't been introduced to the Cult of the Damned yet... Shouldn't everyone get an opportunity to hear Ner'zhul's pitch? ;) It was a facetious argument based on the hyperbolic way people were arguing about Arthas being "right" to commit mass murder, but it also demonstrates how villagers were given no options under Arthas' decision. Which is a very monarchist thing to do.
@@galten7361 They were all bound to the Lich King telepathically. So there's "willing" and then there's "slavery." They're bound whether they like it or not, but some are cool with it.
for your knowledge Arthas kill his own people before they turn to the undead so they exprince clean death no oblivion or any thing arthas bring pain to himself to save his people soul
He stole their agency from them, and that is more unforgivable than anything else Arthas did because they were his own people and they deserved the right to choose how they end it... or if they end it. It was not his right to do so, but he believed it was. That's why it was evil.
@@DesignerDave Speaking of how they end it, did you and Meetzen with the other devs have a certain map of the afterlife back in WC3 era lore? Did everyone when finished dying go to the Twisting Nether by default or were there other places besides it?
@@galten7361 I'm not aware of any afterlife. Metzen was quite adamant early on that there was no "Hell" or lava on Azeroth, but eventually conceded there was the possibility of lava. My IMPRESSION was that he had a more secular and atheistic view of the world. The Light was a source of power, but not connected to a "God." The Demons were alien invaders, not from "Hell." Obviously things evolved since then, but that was my understanding while working on War III and pre-release WoW.
These people were dead already, they were transforming into zombies when he arrived. The purge was necessary in the short term to slow down the Undead. But I want to point out that I love how this mission conveys plot via gameplay: you can either wait for them to turn into zombies, or you can kill them while they are weaker humans by forcing your soldiers. This is stronger than any cutscene or text, because we are not passive but actors.
@@DesignerDave Because him killing them also means he burnt them as seen in the cinematic after the mission with Jaina. So that they can't be used to bolster the armies of the undead and so that they don't spread the plague any further. You also start the mission killing them, before Mal'Ganis shows up.
@@DesignerDave Because you're denying Mal'Ganis the opportunity to create a strong undead army. What do you think is easier to deal with? 3 recently converted zombies or an army of 100 zombies under the control of a Dread Lord? I seriously don't understand why people would think Arthas was in the wrong here. You said it yourself, the villagers were dead already, Lordaeron gained NOTHING by letting them live for a few more hours but by slowly culling them Arthas saved the kingdom from having to deal with a gigantic undead army right at their doorstep. What do you propose Arthas should have done? Nothing? Just wait for Mal'Ganis to gather the entirety of Strathholme's population and march them into the heart of Lordaeron?
@@blacksnk7 By fighting the undead you only give them more bodies to work with. The only reason they were allowed to burn them is because the goal was to corrupt Arthas.
@@DesignerDave By that logic every single faction in W3 was wrong to defend themselves from the scourage. Just like you said, maybe the correct answer would've been to abandon Lordaeron and flee to Kalimdor, but we have access to a lot of informations the characters didnt. If my country was being attacked and some random old man came to me and said i should "leave my ancestral homeland to burn and sail across the vast sea because that is clearly the only way my people will be saved" then i would also push him aside as a madman. Arthas was presented with an impossible situation and did the only thing he thought could help his people. We see in the cinematics that after the battle people are burning the bodies left behind by the scourage so that they cannot be turned into undead. If Arthas hadnt fought Mal'Ganis and killed his troops then all of those bodies (who are disposed of in the cinematics) would have been yet another army thretening Lordaeron. I still don't understand what it is you argue Arthas should have done in that moment with the information he had other than ignore Stratholme and prey all of those zombies and Mal'Ganis wouldnt attack any other towns. Moreover i don't understand what the problem is with killing people who are quite literally already dead. If you have a problem with killing people who cannot defend themselves then you can literally break down the houses, wait a couple of seconds, and then fight the zombies, it makes no difference to the story.
@@DesignerDave Fleeing to the west would be worst. Even if we assume it's feasable to move your entire population by boat. ONE compromised individual (a child or a wife) whose situation was hidden by the rest of the family would fuck it up. And arthas isn't king yet. You can't assume moving everyone, the entire kingdom to the west would be done. + What's stopong the scourge from re doing everything again to the west? Hell, what's stoping them from crossing the sea? Malganis whent to northrend. + Mediv is kind of stupid to say the solution is to leave an entire continent unchecked. And don't get me started on the orc/human conflict. It made sense for thrall to move so that he could create the horde in peace. At least , thanks to arthas: that's one less city filled with the scourge to deal with. A city that could have run wild throughout the region and cause even more chaos. Arthas, Jaina, and uther lost the moment the gain was already delivered and malganis was there before them. Fleeing/retreating would make everything worst. + the citizen attack you during the mission. they are not "innocent" nro do they look allright
Like most things, this is a nuanced issue with no black/white or right/wrong decision. No matter what Arthas did, his world was on the brink of widespread death and destruction. Do nothing? Run and hide? Destroy the would-be zombies before they spread further? Unenviable circumstances all around. Arthas was a man of action, and that lead him to take action for what he believed to be the greater good. A true no-win scenario.
Good points. It is definitely Arthas' hubris and need to leap into things that led him down this very dark path. I'm pretty sure that comes across through the missions.
People that say Arthas did nothing wrong aren't arguing that Arthas made a morally correct choice, they are saying that his actions were necessary and any other approach would have at that time been a worse course of action. In the outro to the mission you see them burning the dead, so the statement of them being turned into the undead regardless is wrong, every civilian he killed was one less undead that could potentially take the lives of the uninfected. With the lack of knowledge apart from grain spreading it, there was also the possibility of suffering the plague through contact and fighting a rabid undead poses a higher risk than killing someone before they turn. Arthas also isn't having a "petty competition" he believes that as future king it is better to take the responsibility on himself for killing his subjects instead of having them be forced to suffer and fight for the scourge in undeath. If Malganis kills more than Arthas you lose the mission, that isn't because Arthas is trying to win a race and would surrender if he gets beaten, it is because if MalGanis turns to many of the people, there is no hope left to stop him. Or am I wrong on that? is the reason why you need to cull more people than malganis can turn in that mission because Arthas just wants to do a kill count competition?
You don't see the bodies being burned in the outro, you see it in the interlude long after Arthas has left. Therefore, he didn't care about burning the bodies. There is no point anywhere in War 3 where plague is spread through contact. There is no game mechanic in which undeath is spread through contact with anything but corpses (skeletons being raised from bodies). So Arthas is your future King, and you are a villager in Stratholme who is gluten intolerant. You know for fact you and your family haven't eaten any grain and are therefore not going to turn into zombies. When Arthas kicks in your door and starts beheading your wife and children, do you stoop down to lick his boot? Mal'ganis turning people is irrelevant, you lose the mission at that point because for Arthas, it WAS about the competition. At that point he gives up and Mal'ganis finishes him there with overwhelming force, ruining Ner'zhul's plan. There is the entire rest of the Kingdom, the Elves, the Dwarves, and Dalaran haven't even been touched. If anything, those are the groups Arthas should be uniting instead of wasting time at Stratholme. But his obsession with vengeance causes him to forego that. The reason Arthas gets into a kill count competition with Mal'ganis is because he's a frigging chump when it comes to being baited into taking action without thought. This is what Ner'zhul has been relying on throughout his campaign to convert Arthas to evil (wherein he succeeds tremendously at Stratholme). We hit that story beat like a dead horse throughout the human campaign to this point, so for people to ignore his rashness here, at The Culling, where it's supposed to pay off is shocking to me. Which leads to my last point: All of the arguments above are irrelevant because Arthas makes his decision to mass murder an entire city based on seeing a few villagers and boxes of grain at the entrance. He has no idea how far or even if the plague has spread inside... Yet he's so adamant about mass murder as a solution he literally accuses Uther of treason for daring to question it and disbands the Paladins from service... At a time where if Arthas falls in battle here, the Undead army would assuredly win any future battles that only include Terenas' armies.
What Arthas did was very definitely wrong - but the beauty of his story was that there were sympathetic motives behind it at every step. Stratholme was unforgiveable - but Arthas truly believed it was the best of the several horrifying options available, because he thought that sacrificing the city would ultimately save far more people. He hated Uther after that in part because he refused to go along with it - but also because he saw him as hypocritical. Uther, from his perspective, chose the worse of the two bad options because he didn't want to dirty his hands. It's the same thing in Northrend. Arthas burns the boats and betrays the mercenaries not because it's a good choice, but because he honestly believes that it's the best option available after his hand has been forced by the recall. Frostmourne and Muradin is just the final moment where Arthas, again, feels his hands have been forced into choosing the least of only bad options, when everyone else is happy to choose something far worse for their own moral vanity. Uther CHOSE to abdicate responsibility for Stratholme and let the worse situation play out - and so Arthas has to take the blame alone. Terenas CHOSE to recall Arthas' forces and let the very real threat to Lordaeron go unanswered - and so Arthas has to take the blame alone. Lordaeron CHOSE to let Arthas die alone, in sight of Malganis' camp - and so Arthas has to take the blame alone. Every single choice he makes is the wrong choice. But he's the only one who has to bear the weight of guilt, the shame, while everyone else who did nothing gets to avoid the worst possible outcome without having to sacrifice anything of their own. It's not surprising he starts to resent them - or that under the weight of so much guilt that he can't share with anyone else, he starts trying to rationalise it to himself. And that's why he's so wonderfully tragic.
I mean on the other hand his last line before grabbing Frostmourne is "Damn the men! Nothing will prevent me from having my revenge" He manages to delude himself through all of this is for the greater good, his previous line eve, is about him bearing any curse to save his people. But finally, on his last act of free will, he openly reveals his motivations. It's about his ego, his need for revenge and not letting Mal'ganis win. Is tragic because it was his self righteousness what alienated everyone closest to him. Perhaps he could have seen the light even Stratholme, but by then there was no one that would stand by him. I don't think Muradin had a change of talking him back, perhaps Uther or Jaina could have but it's very, very unlikely even so, as he was already consumed by revenge.
@@alonsogonzalez7539 Actually no, his last line is that he will do anything to save his people. He does say damn, the men, but that is before his actual last line.
@@alonsogonzalez7539 i always found it wierd how he says "damn the men, i wan revenge!" And right after saying he will bear any curse if it will **save his people.**
The story is the story... and the story showcases repeatedly why Arthas is wrong. If people missed that, they either didn't play the game, played it a long time ago and aren't remembering it correctly, or they're Asmongold boot-lickers who don't have their own ability to form an opinion based on facts.
@@DesignerDave Not a fan of Asmongold. Look here's a example of what I mean George Lucas intended and designed there to be only good and evil in star wars. but fans and later other authors added shades of grey. Changing the sith and Jedi completely. The story isn't the story. Like it or not Death of the Author exists and you have no control over how people choose to perceive your media. What you intended holds no meaning once it's beyond you. You can say your intentions, you can say what you meant as canon but people don't have to agree and they aren't crazy for it. This isn't Twitter. I get that the story may be written to show something but if it can be interpreted in any possible way, it will be interpreted any possible way. Don't stress over it. Every author/creator is dealing with the same drama.
Wouldn't burning the bodies prevent the corpses from being risen? Pretty sure there is a Wotlk quest that confirms corpses burnt to ash can't be raised. It seems Arthas' choice would have slowed down the scourge had he burned the bodies afterward.
They were ALLOWED to burn the bodies. Because Malganis had accomplished his mission of corrupting Arthas. There was absolutely no guarantee that Arthas would win the day, in fact, the odds were not just stacked against him, but based on past levels, the assumption should have been he would fail. He almost died at Hillsbrad... Who saved him? Uther and the Paladins. They were gone. Were it not for the fact that the undead were playing a game of "corrupt the vengeful prince" they would have just overrun him and that'd have been that. Arthas was myopic and thirsty for blood so he couldn't see it... Uther saw it... Jaina saw it... But not Arthas, and apparently not you.
"You've just crossed a terrible threshold, Arthas." - English Uther "You must have just slept badly today, Arthas." - Czech dub Uther Czech Uther says it with an angry, sarcastic voice so the message towards Arthas is very similiar. But the thought that Arthas does these horrible things because he didn't sleep well was always funny to me.
@@DesignerDave oh indeed, the second roc undead mission where an acolyte originally informs Arthas that : "Pardon, Lord, but a being of Kel'Thuzad's power can only be reanimated at a nexus of powerful ley-energies, and there are no such places in this land" from Czech to English could only be translated as: "Pardon, sir, but a being of power, such as Kel'Thuzad, can only be reanimated with the help of powerful "energy blue cheese/meadows", and no such thing exists in these lands. I understand having difficulty with translating "ley-energies", but the final translation being blue cheese??
In the halls of reflection in wotlk uther says to jaina that arthas might be the only thing holding the scourge from killing everything, doesn't that mean arthas is good?????
He was such a good vilain. Even though he had some cliché, he was still a very memorable guy. Too bad metzen left and Danuser did what he did with him.
I can accept that it was morally wrong, inhumane and so on. However, simply leaving the city and the citizens would allow them to ravage the surrounding lands, causing even more victims. It's a cruel decision and I do agree that it's the first step toward Arthas becoming evil, but Arthas did not become evil until he grabbed Frostmourne. I believe it would've been better if Jaina had assisted and blocked off any exits out of the city, then Uther and Arthas could've held off the undead and saved any potential innocents, while keeping them under supervision. The issue there is resources, an army carries resources for themselves. They would not be enough as emergency supplies for refugees and would ultimately lead to the downfall of the army, causing further damage. If your argument is that fighting the undead will only lead to strengthening the undead, you might as well lay down and die.
First killing off Stratholme did not impede the Scourge in a meaningful way. 2ndly Arthas already hijacked his country's forces to chase a demon lord and stranded those troops in Northrend. Frostmourne did not replace Arthas with a monster wearing his skin.
Arthas made the decision to murder an entire city before he even looked inside to see what the situation really is. If that's not evil, I don't know what is.
@@DesignerDave He knew all of their food supplies were contaminated (and had been for a while). You're intentionally ignoring important facts to make your point look better.
@@CottidaeSEA Uhh, no I'm not. The grain had clearly just arrived. It was still sitting at the front gate. I'm not ignoring anything... but you are. The fact that he chose to murder an ENTIRE CITY based on what he JUST SAW at the front gate. Watch the opening cinematic again (that's right, the one that I made) and you tell me that he's not seeing all this for the FIRST time... -_-
@Cottidae There is nothing in WC3 pointing to plagued grain being distinguished from non-plagued grain. Chronicle 3 says so if you bring in post-WC3 lore.
Thing about winning in the Culling map is about attack move on the villagers before they turn into hostile zombies. I've always done so, I don't know if people have done the map another way, but it's harder.
I always wondered why Uther and Jaina just left him to it. Surely it warranted a stronger appeal from them, even if he continued to resist, it needed to have some sort of scuffle to try and restrain or portal him away from committing the treason they know it to be. From Arthas' point of view, however, we are directed with the mission objectives to stop Mal'ganis claiming souls and forming an unstoppable army. Arthas cuts himself off before explaining a key detail to Uther that he doesn't know about the plague, providing a 'they just dont understand' excuse to the disapproval. Calling for forgiveness from his father for 'what I must do' is showing at least some awareness of the morbidity of the situation. It's easy to see how people could view Arthas' intentions as pure and noble even at this point; despite ignoring warnings, he only declares himself to be saving his people and hunting what is the most ultimate baddy he has faced to this point, an incredible threat to his entire kingdom - it is an act of pure desperation. With hindsight, or a broader understanding of the factors at play, it is easy to see how this moment was also heavily coated in evil and madness. You could bring possible classism into the fray, pitching self-justification of the slaughter of lessers as being justified by the ends. Or maybe he was very powerful, but just very dumb and easily out of his depth, being too stubborn to acknowledge that he was coming up with the wrong solutions. Arguably making him more susceptible to the influence/domination. I like to consider the character flaws this mission exposed in Arthas, not just straight evil. The way the player is led through this righteous path, alongside Arthas, clouded the signs that the evil was unfolding, even to the player, until it was too late. With that, it definitely hits on a point of ambiguity that blasted the character upwards in intrigue for many years after... but then he was turned into a weapon enchant and fizzled into nothingness. 🚽🚽
Imagine da Vinci flipping out because some people didn't think the Mona Lisa was smiling, with the hypothetical that the patron deliberately requested an ambiguous element. We would rightfully laugh at him, despite his obvious talent. Now imagine somebody without a tenth of the wisdom of creativity of da Vinci, complaining about editorial oversight objectively improving his art. "maLgAniS wOuLd JuST rUn aWaY!" Yeah, but Arthas would have his _loyal friends_ by his side, not leaving him vulnerable to the manipulations of the Legion.
Arthas didn't have his loyal friends by his side because he crossed a terrible threshold. There's no path to culling the city of Stratholme that includes them. Furthermore, Mal'ganis WAS planning to escape. That's how the mission ends. So he was prepared for that event as indicated by the story. As to the manipulations of the Lich King. By this point in the story it was already too late, which is why Arthas turned on his friends and didn't even give them an opportunity to think of another way to stop the undead. As the story is told, there is no other interpretation than that Arthas gave in to his vengeful impulses, pushed everyone who cared about him away, and engaged in the fruitless slaughter of innocents here.
@@DesignerDave You keep substituting your intentions for the material found in the end product. My point about malganis was that even if he ran, Uther and Jaina would have been able to keep Arthas rooted in the defense of his Kingdom, instead of leaving him vulnerable to his flight of vengeance. His whole attitude post-Stratholme is informed by the lack of faith his closest friends showed in him. Changing that changes everything. "It's already too late." Horseshit. He hasn't picked up the sword, which means he hasn't lost his soul, which means there's a chance to recover his faith. If Arthas was locked into being the Lich King this early, with no options to deviate (barring acting in the most inhuman way imaginable), then your version is probably the least compelling version that could be presented. It reads like a didactic fable, constructed solely from a child's understanding of morality.
@@MasterDecoy1W No, I'm not substituting my intentions. Or Metzen's intentions. At this point in the story, Arthas' predilection to chase vengeance and prioritize his own personal agenda over the ACTUAL safety of his people has been demonstrated multiple times. From the very first mission he's told that "Vengeance must not be a part of what we do" and he leaps into action ahead of orders anyways to kill the Orcs and "save people." In that situation, probably correct. But not at Stratholme. Moreover, Arthas chose to disband the Paladins from service and accuse Uther of treason for simply suggesting there might "be another way" of going about this. Arthas' decision had already been made about Stratholme. He was not going to change. Stories are told to make a point. The point of Arthas was a fall from doing what is right to brashly bringing about the destruction of his own people through vengeance. That is the point of The Culling and the whole story hinges on that... The only people who interpret The Culling as anything other than the first bold step onto the path of evil, do not understand the viewpoint of the villagers or Uther or Jaina. They're firmly entrenched in the "I AM ALWAYS THE HERO" trap that baited and turned Arthas to evil...
Why would the citizens of Stratholme turn into undead when you break their house on their own? You don't need to kill them. In fact, you designed the mission in a way that encouraged killing them before they turned, because they quadrupled their hitpoints if turned into zombies.
@@DesignerDave But militarily speaking it’s just a burning land strategy against peoples that use corpse to get stronger. I get the fundamental idea but I think the issue is that if applied to a real world structure which I guess is what most of us do the situation is simply impossible To quarantine the city would simply allow the scurge to continue elsewhere and have another town infected as the men’s are being focused on keeping the town on lock down instead of stopping other to be taken A solution would have been to show that the scurge could be cured before a certain point but it would delay arthas vengeance. Then maybe defending them while they are human and they are cured being a real pain in the ass by some mechanique would emphasize the fact that killing them is the easy way out. Like a debuff after curing them That would show a fall to evil more than the pure pragmatism of the current situation. From this situation it looks more like he did the hard choice and uther simply left without contributing in any way It’s the reason the ‘do better’ line in captain America série was so cringe. You can say do better and peoples want to do better but without any actual plan or option it just come out as sanctimonious and hypocritical as you admit you couldn’t do better. I like the idea of running being the solution but it’s really just a case of hindsight being 20/20 It’s basically the same idea of what arthas did the burned land strat but in a different way so it’s a great contrast but the thing is that it imply a stagnation of the scurge while the dread lords were very pro active in their story We know that the necromancer was the real architect of the plan but for arthas he assumed it was the dread lord so again we just have hindsight
For what it's worth, I think it's a strength of the writing team that one could even say that about a mass-murderer. And yes whilst I do definitely agree with the idea that Arthas should have listened to Medivh. However, despite being in a fantasy world with orcs, zombies and elves. What Arthas did through denying the Scourge resources is actually a very successful albeit morally wrong military tactic called Scorched Earth which has been used incredibly successfully time and time again e.g. Soviets denying the Nazi warmachine resources to replenish their starved troops. I'd say take it as a you guys did really well writing a sympathetic fall-from-grace story.
The issue is that the undead simply didn't care about Stratholme at that time. They were playing a longer game. The burning of the corpses after Arthas and Malganis JOINED FORCES TO MASS MURDER CIVILIANS (which is literally what is happening in The Culling), was definitely not the outcome that would have occurred if the Scourge wanted to take Stratholme entirely at that time.
This is a meta-story argument, that has no bearing on the in the moment argument, which is what the discussion is about. What the scourge's total goal was is not what is beind discussed but what arthas thought and justified at the time. That should be the discussion. The question is not "is this objectively morally bad" but "out of all decisions, did arthas think he was doing the right thing", which i would say that yes and no. His logic of purging the city so that they don't turn into undead/resources for malganis is a logical act (if he believed that him killing the people would prevent them from becoming undead, possibly due to the stress of the situation), however it was also being more concerned with beating an enemy rather than actually caring about the individuals. Even if arthas was correct that killing them would prevent them from being turned into undead, it still is an objectively immoral act (which i would say that abandoning them as mediv suggested is also immoral, albiet slightly less imorral)
In literally every series with zombies people will kill the zombies. Often people who are infected will be killed before they turn. I don’t think thats evil, inhumane perhaps but the motivation is protection of those that can still be saved.
@@DesignerDave that is evil, the correct checks would have needed to have been carried out. You also couldn’t let potentially infected people just be free though so you would need to have them quarantined while checks were performed. It could be argued that after uther and jaina pulled out there was not enough manpower for this. We are never shown the “but maybe they aren’t infected” possibility in game but that would have given jaina and uther more of a footing for their argument.
@@harryb12993 Uther and Jaina didn't "pull out." Arthas accused Uther of treason and then disbanded the Paladins from service. You are shown the "many weren't infected" in the following interlude... It's literally unplagued villagers burning bodies in the Aftermath of Arthas' kill-crazy rampage.
@@DesignerDave so the bodies were being burnt meaning the forces weren’t bolstered and there were unplagued villagers doing it meaning people survived that wouldn’t have if everyone fled?
@@harryb12993 The bodies were being burnt by villagers, but ultimately this would prove futile, nor is it relevant to the point that Arthas made his choice before even entering the city. Arthas left in such haste that there were plenty of survivors, and none of them turned into zombies... yet. That would come later.
I love that line: "You've just crossed a terrible threshold, Arthas." Sublime delivery. Uther is a chad. I named and created my Lost Ark pally after him. I just used the name Dreadedthreshold because Terriblethreshold didn't fit.
I feel like these arguments ignore the caverns of time version of the culling of strathome where we know everyone on Azeroth would have died in the hour of twilight if the culling never happened
@@master2497 Because Medivh literally warns Arthas just before he goes on his mass murder spree!!!! Literally everyone tells Arthas what he's about to do is wrong...
Sailing is the best option, but only because we know the whole story. Attempting to cull the diseased residents of Strat was the right move. Rash? Yes, but ultimately right (they would turn as soon as their home was destroyed). None of the main heroes in this story were mind readers, so they wouldn't know the grand scheme of MG. Should they have listened? Yes, but we KNOW why, they don't. Thrall listened, but only ultimately because the Spirits deemed what Med said as being the right course of action. As far as everyone else knew, he was just a crackpot mage who appeared. Even if he did identify himself, that wouldn't have immediately helped either. Med ultimately caused a lot of destruction in his time as the guardian, would they trust his words so easily? I wouldn't. It's like Zeus trusting Hades in that terrible Titans film. Compare the plague to something similar to Covid, in our modern day the way to approach it was isolate and then slowly work out methods to prevent infection and mass hospitalisation that would cripple the system. This is the modern day method. In a fantasy setting, who wouldn't immediately rush towards the concept of trying to prevent the spread. Was it horrible? Yes. Do I think Arthas was not wrong? No. But the approach was fairly sound given the circumstances.
Let's clarify then... If you were in Arthas' shoes, would you have done the same... mass murdered an entire city? Bear in mind there were unplagued citizens in Stratholme. We see them in the interlude afterwards burning bodies. If you didn't wait for every villager to turn into a zombie, it's feasible Arthas murdered some. Does that make a difference?
@@DesignerDave Yes; but, there is a core difference between me and Arthas. I would do it, not outright dismissing Uther, but rationally explaining why. As far as we know, this is as far as the plague has spread, if it gets out of Strat, it could mean mass infection and the annihilation of the rest of humanity on the eastern continent. Also, unlike Arthas, I would genuinely feel terrible about what is about to be done. The decision is a horrible one, but given the circumstances could be deemed necessary for the greater good of all humankind in this case. What sets Arthas off IMO as a darker self after this is literally his reaction to it all. He is blinded by rage, lacks empathy and does nothing to truly explain himself which leads him to dismiss anyone who disagrees with him. I think a good example of this concept is one of the last episodes to All of Us Are Dead (I don't want to spoil anything but recommend looking at that as a concept of a modern undead outbreak).
@@nirvanna21 The Scourge is not really comparable with works like the Walking Dead, George Romero's films, etc. The Scourge are ultimately a conquering force directed by a monarch which depends on generals (Death Knight, Lich, Dread Lord, Crypt Lord) and traitors like the Cult of the Damned. They can have their commanders slain and their servants among Humans hunted down and their monarch himself vanquished in war with battlefield. The undead in Night of the Living Dead and others are supposed to be something of a "divine punishment" or otherwise just a walking plague that has no ruler and can't be threatened or bought.
I find it sad that I understood what Arthas did was wrong and was the big turning point for Him as a character when I first played the game as an eight year old, especially when the cutscene afterwards shows villagers cleaning up Arthas' slaughter. Also it wasn't just Jaina that realized Medivh was more then a mad man it was also Thrall, Cairne, Malfurion, and Tyrande. AN Orc warchief, A Tauren chieftain, And two ten thousand year old Elves that didn't like humans at all. So if they could recognize Medivh as more and that he was telling the truth, what was stopping Arthas from seeing it to besides pride? BTW just gotta say this level is what made Arthas one of my favorite characters in the game for his complexity :)
It only worked from the plot saying it should. Medivh never presented any actual evidence for what he was yapping about and got indignant when rulers didn't what he told them to. He also didn't try to speak to the Silver Hand and Quel'thalas even through they would be well equipped to face demons.
Because listening to insane birdmen flying into the Throne room and ordering you to evacuate some 30-50 million people half-way across the world, to a mythical continent for which there is no evidence that it exists, sure sounds like good government policies to me.
The Culling is probably my favorite mission from any video game. The storytelling and player involvement in it is just phenomenal. 1. When the mission begins the quest log says “kill 100 zombies”, but the counter at the top right says “plagued villagers” showing the dissonance between Arthas’ goal and his actual actions. 2. This is not only the first time when Arthas crossed the line- you (the player) did as well. At first you are shocked that your goal in to kill 100 people, but as Mal’Ganis appears and his transformation counter appears you feel the pressure to kill villagers fast - when the cutscene of his arrival ends he already claimed 4 villagers while you killed 0. At that point I thought about trying to kill Mal’Ganis instead, but there was no time. I had to start killing villagers. 3. According to the quest logs, Mal’Ganis CLAIMS villagers while you KILL them. The wording there really shows how wrong Arthas is. 4. Also, every building you destroy and every villager you kill must be selected individually since they are neutral units, which reminds you they are not your enemies. It was YOUR choice to kill every single one of them. 5. I love how Arthas’ lines when he kills the villagers are the same as they were in previous missions (“I stand for the light”, justice shall be done”, you are beyond redemption”, etc.). I know that pretty much every RTS game doesn’t change the voicelines of a character for a specific mission, but seeing Arthas treating helpless sick villagers the same as his actual enemies left such a strong impression on me. 6. In the beginning cutscene Arthas is the only one standing on the hill looking down at the village. The height differences illustrate how much power Arthas has compared to them, and also shows that he is the only one who saw what’s happening in the city (which makes you think that even if it feels wrong, maybe he knows better than I do?) You made a very enjoyable masterpiece. Thank you for that :)
This is like the scene in Portal 2 where GLaDOS tries to fry Wheatley's brain with a paradox and he just responds with "True. I think I'll go with true", except instead of Russell's paradox, it's the trolley problem that he thinks he has a definitive, objectively correct answer to.
It's not the trolley problem. There are not two defined tracks here. You either mass murder the citizens of Stratholme or you find another way. Arthas chose the former based on seeing 4 villagers and some plagued grain at the entrance and a burning desire to save "HIS" kingdom. This was at a point when they'd done zero investigation as to who was plagued, how many ways plagued, whether it was curable or not... That's the stuff of psychopaths...
It's a shame that none of the campaigns in Starcraft 2 and its expansion packs had such memorable missions as the Culling. Campaigns in Starcraft 1, BW, WC3 and TFT remain the pinnacle of storytelling in RTS games.
I think the entire SC2 campaign lineup was a total blast, not sure what you mean. I do think some of them were a bit too 'fun' and not enough harrowing events that kept you on the edge. The last wings of liberty mission was for sure crazy, as was the underground hero mission on char, the rooftop rescue mission where you get the big transports, the zerg campaign is just all golden as well, and the protoss missions had some great moments too with Fenix's return and all of the Tal'darim content.
Arthas was doomed by the advancing of the canon. Once it became established that the Lich King had psychic powers and could telepathically influence others, it meant that Arthas could never be said to be totally in charge of himself. Ner'zhul was so psychically powerful that he was able to see into Illidan's mind to read his ambitions. Further, Kel'thuzad told Arthas that Ner'zhul chose him to be his champion, meaning that Arthas was always targeted by the Lich King. This all happened when he was 26. Also, Arthas murdering everything has been shown to be effective in some cases. Hearthglen in WoW is a Scarlet Crusade bastion principally because Arthas defended it.
The goal of the scourge is not to wipe out humanity. They need humanity to grow their forces. That is a fundamental of the scourge that everyone conveniently forgets for some reason. If they wiped out humanity, there will eventually be no more undead...
@@DesignerDave I see your geekiness and raise you this nerdiness. During the interlude between missions 5 and 6 of the Scourge campaign, Kel'thuzad explains how the Scourge is just a tool for the Burning Legion. Specifically, the Scourge was to destroy the forces of Lordaeron and the High Elves, people who would resist a huge demonic invasion. At most, they were needed to supplement the Legion forces in taking Hyjal, but that was it. If you go back to Warcraft 2, Gul'dan already raised the Broken Isles. Getting Sargeras' remains is probably what the Legion wanted in the long run. And if you factor the Legion out, the Lich King's goal is to rule the world where everyone is a corpse or a ghost that bends to his will. So the Scourge's goal, in either case, is to wipe out any resistance to the Lich King and make everyone obedient to him. Which means killing not just all of humanity, but anything that's alive.
@@DesignerDave "The goal of the scourge is not to wipe out humanity. They need humanity to grow their forces." The manual for RoC says the Scourge was supposed to wipe out Humanity though: "Kel'Thuzad looked upon the Lich King's growing army and named it the Scourge - for soon, it would march upon the gates of Lordaeron...and scour humanity from the face of the world."
You are DesignerDave not WriterDave.... Even if a writer were trying to write Arthas to do something irredeemable, you royally failed because that's just not what it looks like... Having another way to "save the people" who were infected by the plague is just convenient writing after already setting up how the plague infection looks like before the culling, just like the rest of WoW after WC3 storyline...
I'm also Writer Dave... I've written for every game I've worked on, including Warcraft 3. Having another way to save the people is not "convenient writing" it's an absolute possibility that Arthas could have explored if he were not so bloodthirsty and quick to enact VENGEANCE against Mal'ganis. A theme we set up consistently before the events of The Culling. But most of the people who don't understand that The Culling is a step onto the path of true evil, played the game when they were 10 years old apparently. So I can see how they missed the foreshadowing and narrative context of his HEINOUS and UNFORGIVABLE act.
The Culling of Stratholme was 100% the best decision. By your own admittance, leaving Stratholme to Mal'Ganis unopposed meant the entire populace was dead anyway. By purging the city, and driving Mal'Ganis out, Arthas ultimately, if unintentionally, left behind survivors, and prevented tens of thousands of new Scourge being raised. Even if they listened to Medivh, you know the Guardian that was corrupted by the same Titan that controlled the Scourge, not exactly trust worthy, running wasn't an option. The giant, flying Necropolises would spread the Scourge over the entire planet.
He made the decision before he even knew what was going on inside... The decision to murder an entire city of people. If you think that's good decision making, then I assume you would also bend the knee and kiss his boot when he busts in your door and starts trying to decapitate you... even if you never ate any grain...
This is incredibly silly, emberassing even, and I must disapprove the discussion around it. If you are looking for a psychopath you should turn to a mirror.
Really? So me showing empathy and concern over those who believe a psychopathic young prince was "doing nothing wrong" when he slaughtered most of a city of people (some infected, some not) is sign that I myself am a psychopath? GOOOOO OONNNN Doctor... Explain more... Very curious to hear your argumentation on this totally not exhausted topic.
I think people tend to rationalize his actions as "Well if your friends and family were about to become zombies wouldn't you rather they died as humans?" but in the end what happens is Arthas sees in Hearthglen (after Jaina leaves, importantly) what the plague does to his people and after seeing the same in Stratholme he just goes mad because he realizes it's a lost cause. There's no way he could think he was actually saving his people, so instead he's like "Mal'Ganis forced my hand so I'm gonna get my revenge" and at that point it's clear he's at the deep end. But like I said, I'd argue that started in Hearthglen. If Jaina had been there when the villagers became zombies she would've understood what ticked Arthas off and maybe try to talk some sense that it was pointless, but alas Arthas probably wouldn't have heeded her. At the end of the day Ner'zhul picked his champion perfectly.
Well, Dave, you come out as extremely obnoxious with all this. -First of all, you act as if people know literally everything about reality or something. If some cryptic dude showed up at your house and told you to abandon everything you've worked for because "the end is coming", you mean you would listen to him? You would totally find that reasonable? You would abandon all your goods and just go away? Are you a nomad or something? - How would people know how the Lich King does anything? They are not omniscient, dude. Do you know why Putin is invading Ukraine and what his plans are?? Do you know how to manufacture weapons and how they work? Do you know how to build nuclear bombs? People work on limited information, and when it comes to fiction, we try to think of the characters of works as functioning somewhat like real people. If they don't, then it really is quite meaningless to consider their intentions. Tell me how Cthulu thinks, please. -If your argument is "I am the God of warcraft so I am right", then diverging opinions literally can't exist, and so the concept of debating outcomes becomes meaningless. If your argument is your omniscience, then discussions are irrelevant. -Your authorial intent really doesn't matter? So, Hitler writes Mein Kampf and we have to agree he is right because he was the author and had his intent... What? That's not how it works. Authorial intent doesn't really mean anything; all we do is project ourselves into the works we read and draw our own thoughts. You are not right because you say you are right. -"Uther and Jaina told him so." Cool, but that's, like, their opinion, man. Do you know what the easiest thing in the world is? Telling someone they're doing something wrong while not providing any other solution. If the game wanted to present Arthas as completely wrong, then you fucked up by not providing an adequate replacement for his plan beyond what you know as an author. In that case, you are to blame for your own incompetence. And to all the people saying we shouldn't argue with the dev... Never complain about anything ever, okay? If you ever eat bad food at a restaurant and you can't cook, then don't ever complain about it. If you never learned to be a teacher, then never complain about bad teachers. If you don't know a thing about engineering, then don't complain about bad infracstructure. If you never joined the army and served as a private, never complain about the military. if you never fought in a war, never complain about war; you don't know anything, after all. Why should you have a voice at all?
Wow, what an OBNOXIOUS response. If a fucking magical talking crow/man shows up at my door, I'm DEFINITELY considering EVERY DAMN WORD they have to say. Yes... Would you ignore them??? Hmm? No one needs to understand how the Lich King works... They only needed to understand how UNDEAD work... And Undead gain power with EVERY conflict. The only way to defeat undead is to starve them of the bodies they need to grow their forces. Now you might argue... "Okay burn all the bodies," but that's not going to work when they're applying pressure. The only reason they were ALLOWED to burn the bodies in Stratholme is because the Lich King was playing the longer game and enticing Arthas to Ice Crown. I'm not saying diverging opinions can't exist, but I am TELLING YOU WHAT THE AUTHORIAL INTENT WAS! You can CHOOSE to ignore it, just like some people ignore the intent of other authors when they say things like: "Arthas did nothing wrong," but you are thereby admitting and confirming that your position is one of IGNORANCE. And no, I'm not "the God of Warcraft," I never said that nor would I ever make the claim. I'm simply telling you what WE were thinking when we MADE THE GAME. Which is the whole point of all my Warcraft III videos. Informing YOU of the authorial intent of every mission and story component that I worked on. If you want to IGNORE it, fine, but don't pretend you don't know, because I'm telling you the facts of the matter. Holy shit... Straight to Hitler shit, okay that's pathetic... If you don't understand Hitler's point of view when writing Mein Kampf, you might actually go down the wrong path and start to believe what's in it is A-Okay... That's the point of understanding authorial intent. Arthas was evil... His choice in The Culling... WAS EVIL! It was provoked by his arrogance and ignorance and thirst for vengeance. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT! You can ignore it if you want, but it doesn't change the facts of how the story was written. The solution was NOT TO COMMIT GENOCIDE! What are you even talking about? "I think we should NOT mass murder people." Well that's just your opinion man... Wow! Arthas path was set. We don't have to provide anything else than the path the story was taking! I MADE YOU PARTICIPATE IN SLAUGHTER! You were never supposed to feel good or justified about it. In fact, the early versions of The Culling were NERFED, because they made me add the zombie transformation. In the original version, I had you mass slaughtering civilians who were not going to turn, and they were BEGGING for their lives... All that was cut because it was deemed too far... But the intent was the same. You were not supposed to cheer on Arthas mass murdering civilians. The fact that I even have to point that out is DISTURBING TO ME! Feel free to argue with me, just know that your viewpoint here is kinda gross. But carry on... It's amusing.
@@DesignerDave Dude, I had no idea you were this embarrasing. I could counter every point you have, but it would be quite pointless with how you are acting. I'm actually unsubscribing. This is very disappointing. Have a good day, or don't.
Plenty of ways to interpret is as neccesary. He set the city on fire and was burning the bodies of the civilians, preventing them from being able to be ressurected.
WoW lore doesn't apply to WC3 lore unless you start saying le Jailer did it. And no, the Scourge once it's actually occupying territory doesn't need intact corpses or even corpses.
He was not burning any bodies. He left immediately to chase Mal'ganis to Northrend. But more importantly, even if he did, it doesn't matter, because the whole point of Arthas' character is his rashness. He made the choice to massacre an entire city without even stepping foot inside. That's not a good Prince, that's not a good leader, that's not a good person.
The biggest problem with this argument is that it's predicated on author's knowledge. You know the goal wasn't to take Stratholm, but you have to consider whether it makes sense for Arthas to know that. If he doesn't, then the only options he has are to go through with the purge or think "this will make me fall to evil, so I wont do it" - which only makes any sense in a world of objective goods and evils, i.e. unrealistic writing even for a fantasy world. Either way, Arthas is a victim, whether that's of a plot to force him to commit acts that he would otherwise be justified in or of the cardinal writing sin of making him self-identify as evil.
The whole plot of the story is Arthas falling towards evil. The biggest problem is that certain people refuse to accept that The Culling was a massive step over a line into evil via the heinous act of committing mass murder on a civilian populace against their will... Based on seeing four people at the entrance... and in spite of protests from all his friends and the words of a prophet warning him against it... Arthas would never self-identify as evil, of course not... But you're not Arthas, and I hope that if you were in his shoes, you'd choose a different path.
@@DesignerDave I finished watching the Pippa stream between then and now. You said yourself that you would kill the few to save the many in the trolley problem, and you recognize that many people (wrongly, in your opinion) consider the culling to be the trolley problem. That really drove home that it comes down to an author's knowledge issue - You know every single tidbit of lore and intent and everything there is to know about the situation, and you personally could make a more informed decision knowing that time was not an issue and what the real goals were, but your audience does not, and cannot, since they aren't you. It's a limited scope of your perspective that ends up in the game, let alone ends up in the audience's head. It's hard even for the best writers to keep that in mind.
@@wrpen99 Nope... Arthas saw four sick people at the entrance to Stratholme and before even peeking inside uniformly decided to mass murder an entire city of people. That is not logical or rational. It has nothing to do with author knowledge.
@wrpen99 The Culling of Stratholme isn't a Trolley Problem since it is actually about knowing you only have the option to kill someone who did nothing to warrant it to ensure more aren't killed. Arthas did not actually discriminate between the plagued and not plagued also doing so does not impede the Scourge significantly. The one having to pick which side the trolley goes knows well what will happen.
The grain transforms people into zombies, thats really all arthas knows at that point. He was trying to do the right thing in a machiavellian way by ending the plague in stratholme, and perfect hindsight shows he made a terrible mistake. But the idea that he just randomly, on a dime, went from trying desperately to save his people into mass murdering them for sport just doesnt make any narrative sense
No, it 100% makes narrative sense because we foreshadowed it multiple times. Multiple times throughout the story he was warned by Uther that "vengeance must not be a part of what we do" to not be rash, to not make snap decisions. Medivh forewarns him that this will doom his people as well. Arthas ignores ALL that and assumes that only he is right, only he can determine the fate of his people... alone... That's WHY Ner'zhul chose him. Because of his failings. It doesn't take hindsight, it takes only a little bit of forethought to know that Stratholme was either already doomed or worth attempting to save. Mass murder does NOTHING but play into the hands of the undead, and Arthas knew that better than anyone, but chose to get into a kill count contest with Mal'ganis anyways.
@@DesignerDave But Arthas' failing that we are shown many times leading up to that moment is his pride. That's what is being foreshadowed, not some kind of bloodlust for the innocent. In Stratholme, his pride boils over and causes him to cast aside his friend and mentor, and make a rash decision. But its totally believable to me, given that he believes protecting his people is his foremost duty, that he sees the culling as a grim necessity to contain the plague. "Better these people die at MY hands than serve as your slaves in death!" He still believes he's helping them. And the kill counter argument is just kinda silly. It's there because the player is being put on a clock, Ive seen no evidence that arthas and mal'ganis are actually keeping some kind of sporting kill count. And if we're going to be that meta in our analysis, might as well also say that Arthas only kills villagers who are visibly steaming with the plague and are living in houses labeled "PLAGUE INFECTED HOUSE"
@@LoadPast What do you think drives Arthas to ignore everyone's advice? To ignore his mentor? To chase down Mal'ganis ON HIS OWN? That IS PRIDE! So you do understand then how WRONG The Culling is, and how it's a demonstration of Arthas' complete lack of empathy and compassion for the people he is supposed to be "saving..." Because... HE LET HIS PRIDE GET IN THE WAY! If the "kill counter" argument is silly, then understand that the label "Plague Infected House" and "Plagued Villager" is a perspective issue... That's what Arthas believes... but is it true? No one else was there to confirm anymore.
@@DesignerDave Yeah thats what Im saying, his pride clouds his judgement and leads to his fall. But I think to say Arthas at this point was demonstrating a complete lack of empathy and compassion for his people is wrong. He believed mercy killing those people would spare them a worse fate. Really the only clear options before them at that point were: try to contain the plague, or listen to a mysterious bird man and get on boats to attempt to move a literal kingdom full of people across the sea... and i guess just pray that none of them are carrying the plague... When people say Arthas did nothing wrong in Stratholme, I disagree. But his actions do make sense. He is trying to contain the plague as best he can and spare his people the indignity/torment of becoming a demon's slaves in death. He is not going to try to tear everyone in Lordaeron from their homes and run, hes going to stay and try to save them. I think people see him less as a butcher and more as a surgeon amputating a limb. But that grim amputation, the culling, is an extremely traumatic event that makes him start to lose his mind and be more and more susceptible to ner'zhul's whispers, and about halfway through the northrend campaign is when he really starts to become obsessed with vengeance to the point that he forgets about saving his people.
He seemed to think that killing Mal'ganis may stop this from getting worse. Him wanting to kill the dreadlord makes sense since he was responsible for killing his people. He could not bare to idly stand by as his people are turned into undead. Of course that didn't pan out well at all but he could not know that in advance. Wasn't there also a point made somewhere that burning the corpses would prevent them from being raised? (Not sure, might be a different universe) His reaction is quite understandable regardless of it being good or evil.
2:00 Arthas is a paladin. If you are telling me a paladin who kill doomed civilian can't make their dead bodies stay dead... then how do paladin kill the undead ? eddit: if you wanted to show arthas as evil: you shoudln't have made the citizen turn into zombi and attack artas, but instead make us kill them when they seems fine. And even then, they were still dommed. But at least doing it would feel wrong.
In the original Culling, the villagers did not turn into zombies unless Malganis converted them. This was "nerfed" because some people got "upset" about having to murder civilians. So we had them convert after a few seconds after you destroy a building... But that's a game mechanic and not the intent. They're all human when you crack open the buildings... If you never touched the buildings, you don't know how many would stay human... maybe some were never sick at all...
@@DesignerDave so censorship, pretty much ruined it then? but even so, since maganis is there: if we did nothing and followed uther and jaina ... he would have turned them anyway. Everyone in the scene seems to agree that everyone have already consumed the grains. Is arthas action bad? sure. But it was the best action to take because they had already lost when they got there. The only thing they have left was mitigating the chaos that would follow. In the end: none of the character had a solution. Only's arthas action made it possible to avoid yet a whole city being used as a weapon against lordaeron and the entirerty of the eastern kingdom. Even if you choose to spend precious ressources to confine the city, you would just make the innocent there die in a zombi apocalypse. Nothing changes. And even then, that would be only possible if malganis retreat. By why would he if arthas is retreating? I understand that you wanted this moment to be THE moment where arthas turns ... but the situation was not good enouth for that. *You would have to instead do something like:* Getting there before the grain is distributed, and before malganis, but know that you can't sustain that population alone, nor be able to move them before malganis arrives or something and so Arthas decided to kill perfectly healthy and innocent civilians who are far from being doomed. Because they would be an impossible weight to carry during his fight against malganis or something. "Ah! you wanted to use my people against me malganis? too bad, i got here 1st and there is nobody to turn now! I've made sure of it!" Or something.
@@ereder1476 Even with the censorship, if you don't understand that mass murder is the turning point of Arthas' story, then you really need to re-examine your moral and ethical guidelines. Imagine you're a villager in Stratholme, you're not feeling sick at all. Arthas burns down your house and murders your family. Did he do nothing wrong? Really ponder that...
@@DesignerDave But the villager doesn't have the knowledge about the plague. So of course they would be shocked. But we are not talking about "arthas = evil from the villager's perspective". Else everyone would agree. We are looking at it from the events, from a story perspective. Arthas saved countless by not letting the outbreak happend. Yes he murder them, but again: they were all doomed. They litteraly were all dead already. Because that's what the plague does, it's not some silent agent that only trigger when the person dies (in that case sure, you could just put them on a watchlist for when they die, meanwhile they can live normaly) Before the culling we saw what the plague was and how unstoppable it is. The caracteristic of the plague made it so that arthas has to take actions. Because again: there was no alternative. It is indeed a dramatic event, a grimdark one. HE MURDURED ALL OF THEM ... that's malganis's win, he forced arthas to kill them before they turned. He forced a prince to kill thoses he had sworn to protect... Because he made it so that there was no other way. a checkmate. Just to piss Arthas off even more and insure he follow him to northrend to be later corrupt by frostmourn. *IF THERE WAS AN ALTERNATIVE* then yea, arthas being evil because he was ruthless for no reason would be easely understood. But there wasn't. Mediv's idea is stupid and ignorant (maybe because he is too disconnected from mankind&co), Uther and jaina ? they are just coward who prefer doing nothing and let this city tear itself appart in a zombi apocalypse... and then create even more death by fighting/cleansing that whole city... i mean really: what's the alternative?
@@DesignerDave tl;dr i understand your point. But it's trully the lack fo alternative that make what you wanted to convey not stick. If there was, then everyone would be "wait hold on arthas wtf are you doing why don't you do that instead?! Jesus you fucked up!" but the game doesn't show any alternative. Just blind doctrine from uther and cowardness from jaina while arthas do the hard choice after this defeat
I have a question about Uther and being lawfully good, while also knowing hardly anything about warcraft lore: Why did he not fight against Arthas to protect the innocent civilians of Stratholme? Did he not took an oath to protect the innocent? I know he resisted Arthas' orders, but he also didn't stop him. For me, it looks like he puts his alliegance to the crown above his oath as a paladin. Do I understand it correctly? If yes, are there paladins in the lore who did it the other way around, meaning fighting against their superiors to protect the innocent?
He did take an oath to protect the weak. In this case he is following orders because the alternative would be to kill Prince Arthas and then be executed when he returned to King Terenas. Instead he pleads with King Terenas to stop Arthas' rampage and convinces him to recall the expedition to Northrend. There are certainly Paladins of every type in the lore, but Arthas sends all the Paladins away at the start of The Culling so they're not there to intervene. But bear in mind that in terms of people killing their own citizens to quell the Undead uprising. In this matter, Prince Arthas is the only commander to do so at the time of Warcraft III.
@@DesignerDave Interesting! I thought that maybe he could have stopped Arthas without killing him /taking him hostage, for example by rallying the forces around him who probably also weren't happy with committing genocide. And then accepting any kind of punishment from his king after rescuing the Stratholme survivors. But of course, such a course of action would have prevented the story you were trying to tell and probably would be more akin to a chaotic good character =)
@@legendofJupp Yep, definitely chaotic good and not lawful good at that point. Like it or not, a monarch's rule and those of his son, are effectively law. I wonder if Uther would later turn anti-monarchist had Arthas not killed him.
Easy... Tell Uther and Jaina that we MIGHT be too late, but if we're going to save the city, we will have to separate the sick from the rest as quickly as we can. We lock everyone who's green or coughing in the zoo, and we defend the rest in our encampment. With Uther, Jaina, and Arthas combined we easily defeat Mal'ganis. Stratholme saved, the Lich King's plot to turn Arthas evil is foiled, and we quickly send runners or mages to every city to warn about the plagued grain. While the Scourge is reeling from their losses at Stratholme and with their grain plauge foiled, I rush to Dalaran and secure the pledge of the Mages to work together with the Alliance against greater threats, utilizing the potential threat of the Scourge taking Stratholme (now defeated) to motivate them. Then the same with the Elves and the Dwarves. Before the Legion has even arrived, a united Lordaeron stands against them... But that's not the story of Arthas... the rash Prince who fell to evil.
@@politicsandart7994 Again, it doesn't matter. The point is WHEN Arthas made the decision and WHAT information he had at that moment. He literally sees a few sick villagers and some boxes of plagued grain at the ENTRANCE to Stratholme and LEAPS to the decision of mass murdering the entire city. And then people act like Uther and Jaina were bad for NOT agreeing with him? Like... just get over it, Arthas was wrong, you guys are wrong and no amount of retconned history about the plague or information that Arthas didn't have at the time he made the choice can change that.
@@politicsandart7994 Hahahahahaaha... No, I am explaining exactly what the story of that campaign mission was as I am the creator of the mission. And everyone is SO happy when I do this for things they agree with me on, but the moment I disagree they turn into a bunch of angry bitter little trolls who can't handle a simple fact check... from the creator of the mission they claim to have more knowledge about than me... You just can't accept that you're wrong. That's the problem, and it has nothing to do with me other than I'm the one pointing it out. Good luck in life.
I disagree on your "corpses become abominations" thing. They don't "become" abominations, they are made abominations. With great difficulty and resources as I understand. And to raise the dead as skeletons you also need necromancers and a lot of energy. That was the beauty of the plague, it did everything itself. Also Arthas did burn the city in the game thus denying necromancers materials needed.
He did not burn the city. The survivors burned the bodies. That's made very clear in the next scene. Aboms and Necromancers taking more time is irrelevant. The point is that slaughtering the people stops nothing.
@@DesignerDave Later lore that talks about Stratholme assumes that Arthas' army torched the city when culling. There's official art of Arthas standing filled with remorse in a burning Stratholme.
I understood that Arthas was killing these people and by doing so diminishing the undead forces. The whole playing experience of wc3 teaches you that although technically the undead can raise corpses, they are an army that can be killed by conventional means. You kill their army, destroy their buildings - and they die. So here, by Arthas killing these people, I understood he was indeed stopping the people of Stratholme from directly bolstering the ranks of the undead. In this line of thought - I understood Jaina and Uther's objection just from the moral dillema if it's ok to murder people just because they will turn into zombies soon. They thought it was still murder, and Arthas was more cold and pragmatic about it and less emotional. He did what needed to be done. Although this definitely showed that Arthas was pretty callous and willing to go to moral extremes to fight the undead, I didn't really see eye to eye with Uther about the "terrible threshold". In my play experience Arthas really lost himself in a gradual process during the Muradin story arc. From wanting to burn the boats, to betraying and murdering the mercenaries who helped him, and finally losing it completely by sacrificing Muradin to get Frostmourne. So although from a writer's prerspective, you may have meant to have arthas killing the people at stratholme just be a pointless petty race vs malganis, that is not what I and apparently many other players understood. Like many people already wrote here, I think the fact that this turning point was seen as morally ambiguous and not black and white - made the story and Arthas as a character much more compelling and memorable. (btw - only played wc3, no WOW) As a side note kudos to your dedication on responding to the comment section.
You could argue that Arthas would be reducing the army of Mal'ganis, but by ignoring when and how Arthas makes the decision you're missing the point of the story and his character arc. Arthas is rash and impetuous and leaps into action without thinking numerous times before this. He's also been admonished by Uther for being bloodthirsty for "vengeance" against Mal'ganis. The Culling is the culmination of that arc turning Arthas to evil. At the point that Arthas decides to mass murder an entire city, he has not even looked inside its walls to see what's going on. For all we know, the only people sick are those at the entrance that he sees. But immediately he leaps to the conclusion that everyone must die... Even though we know that many people may not have eaten any grain at all at this point (and this is confirmed in the interlude of the aftermath). The idea that Arthas "did what needed to be done" is actually even more ridiculous, because killing all the people in Stratholme did nothing but further the destruction of Lordaeron. Dead bodies turn into undead, everyone knows this... and he risked his entire army being fed to the undead if he failed... doubling that risk when he sent Uther and his paladins away after accusing him of treason. There's absolutely no justification for what Arthas did at Stratholme, and all the people talking about "but they would be eternally tormented" or "he burned the bodies so it's okay" sound like lunatics to me. -_- Everyone I've proposed this to has shut up so far so I'll use it again... You live in Stratholme, you're gluten intolerant and haven't touched any grain, nor has any of your family. When Arthas kicks the door in, do you stoop down to lick his boot before he murders you? Everyone's gung-ho on mass murder when they're Prince Arthas... perhaps a little less so when they're peasant number 80 in his kill crazy rampage to beat Mal'ganis.
@@DesignerDave I hear what you are saying about not everyone neccessarily being infected, but that poses a bigger question towards uther and jaina for not stopping him. If they thought he was just brutally hastening something inevitable, I can understand how they would rather leave and not watch. But if you are saying that there is a chance there are people who aren't infected in the city, it's crazy that they didn't try harder to save those people and just left so arthas could murder them.
@@cheshire9646 They didn't "just leave." You're ignoring a VERY critical moment in the intro cinematic where Arthas accuses Uther of treason and then literally disbands the Paladins from service. Does that sound like someone thinking rationally? "Hey, I'm about to face a huge undead threat, let's send the Paladins home..." Uther is Lawful Good, not Chaotic Good. He refused a director order from his Prince, which is one thing, but after Arthas sent him home... what was the alternative? Kill Arthas? Knock him out and drag him home? How many soldiers would be lost in that battle, right outside the city Mal'ganis supposedly occupies... Which would then be fodder for more undead... Uther understood that fighting with Arthas then and there would have been a death sentence for every one of his men. Jaina alone could do nothing for the situation, so she chose to leave, hoping Arthas would come to his senses if he saw she was seriously against this action too... But alas, he did not care. And no, I'm not saying there's a "chance" there were uninfected. There were 100% uninfected people in there, and we show them in the following interlude. But just the very idea that "everyone inside MUST be infected" is a demonstration of how Arthas was not thinking rationally. In any given situation there are not just two options, there are many possibilities. Some people might just not eat any grain... Gluten allergies are a thing. One can assume there were citizens who ate only meat... Among a myriad of other reasons that the plague would not have infected everyone. And remember... in War3, zombies don't spread plague. No one is ever bitten by a zombie and converted and there are no mechanics by which someone is converted to a zombie unless they've eaten plagued grain.
@@DesignerDave I guess I mostly accept what you are saying, but I still think that the fact that such a large amount of the playerbase (even just based on the comment section here) initially understood that the moral choice in this situation was not so clear cut, - indicates that from the player experience, that is how the story is often seen. So whether or not that is what you intended, I think the fact that many people initially understood it like that is pretty indisputable. much like if half of a class fails a test - the teacher can blame the students all they want, but ultimately a large part of the responsibility lies on the teacher. the bottom line of what I'm trying to say is that even if you can explain how the plague was not a sure thing and bring different evidence to prove your point, I don't think that is clear from the player experience. I think players who understood it that way are not wrong, even if that is not what you the designer intended, but rather that the play experience is not so clear on that point. As a side note like I have already said, I think this possible understanding of this situation being morally multi-faceted, makes Arthas more interesting and sympathetic as character. So even while you may not have intended people to understand it this way, I think it is a "happy accident" or a "bug turned feature"
@@cheshire9646 Do not be confused by a VERY vocal group who is NOT the majority. When I put it to votes of random people who play the game, that is definitely not the case. From the "player experience" they are playing AS Arthas, and here's a trick about the psychology of humans that you many not know. We are VERY bad at understanding why we make choices before we make them, but we are VERY good at JUSTIFYING decisions we've already made. Thus, there's a large contingent of players who felt complicit in Arthas' actions... because they had to kill the villagers, and then worked backward to find ways to justify those actions. Just like... a certain group did during WW2... I'm not calling anyone anything... I'm just saying... It's the same underlying psychological principle. ;)
Well, even if there was no culling. I always found the killing of his mercenaries and the burning of the ships in Nothrend a bit disturbing. Also the Muradin's death event is, for me, the clearest sign that there has always been something wrong with him. In the end, it's pretty clear that he chosed his destiny. (Apologies for my bad english)
I mean, exactly. He hadn't touched the sword yet but he wasn't even phased by Muradin's death (and they were old friends)... So I don't know what these "ADNW" people are all about other than regurgitating something stupid someone said who clearly hasn't played War III in a long time. ;)
@@DesignerDave The Rise of the Lich King novel changed it so that Arthas actually tried to heal Muradin when a shard of Frostmourne's ice seal struck him down. But didn't since the Light wouldn't show itself anymore.
"Arthatas commited mass genocide, they were already dead, why kill them?" that's the argument I hear dave is saying but they werent already dead they were not going to just die they were in for a more horrific end - to become trapped as undead for all eternity, to never know peace. If I was becoming an undead I'd rather someone kill me and put my soul to rest I wouldnt want to become undead and serve some lord for all eternity that's horrifying
At the time Arthas made the decision to genocide an entire city, he didn't know how many were plagued and he definitely didn't know about any tormented undead eternity. Let's say you were inside Stratholme and had a gluten allergy, thus you never ingested any grain. When Arthas busts in your door to behead you, would you stoop down to thank him as you licked his boot?
Wow... I played WC3 since I was a child and it always seemed that killing the citizens was a logical step so that Mal'Ganis doesn't win. But I have never thought of the dead bodies and how it actually benefits the Scourge even though it is quite obvious and everybody said it like thousand times. Just... wow... It was a no win situation all the time.
Yeah the best choice would have been to listen to Medivh but it's pretty hard to know if that guy is telling the truth about another continent or not just a total mad man. From the book perspective of Arthas downfall, he made the right decision because Stratholme was too big to let the scourge build an army out of it. And even in the game, corpse get burned after it, making the scourge unable to use them. Also it was clearly stated that people can turn at any moment into an undead and still in the book, Arthas suffered alot of each blow he gave to the civilian. Was that a retcon from the book ? Do you know the point of view of Metzen at this time ? (if I remember it, he was the lead writter too back then) Even if I guess you work with him durring that mission and share the same opinion on it.
Yeah, Metzen indicated that The Culling was the first step into evil on the journey to becoming a Death Knight and everything in the story to this point indicates why Arthas crosses a "terrible threshold" here. Arthas' decisions were impetuous, short-sighted, and extremely dangerous. Based on previous missions, those are his traits that always get him into trouble and it plays out here too. Without Uther and his Paladins, the likely outcome of a major undead conflict was for Arthas to be overrun and turned into undead right there... thus bolstering the undead forces (ala the Hillsbrad mission where he just barely holds on). The only reason that wasn't the case was because the Undead's mission in Stratholme was to corrupt Arthas, not take the city. So the most likely outcome based on Arthas' past experiences would be for his army to be slain and thus there would have been no burning of bodies. In the original version of The Culling, the villagers also did not turn into zombies unless Malganis did it. Thus making it more ambiguous if you were killing plagued villagers or unplagued villagers... in effect showing that Arthas was killing indiscriminately. There were also sounds for villagers pleading for their lives and weeping as Arthas invaded their homes. All of that was nerfed because it was deemed "too harsh" and people wanted a way to not be evil... Thus the zombie timers were put in, and you can wait until they turn to kill them. Thus, people who only killed zombified citizens can truthfully say that "their" Arthas did not fully turn evil just yet in their storyline. ;)
@@DesignerDave wow ! Thanks for the answer. I always seen stratholme as a no win-win moment and just only multiple level of bad ending. Especialy that I've played that game durring WotLK/and with the book to get more info. So I guess the Arthas of W3 was more of a spoiled selfish brat with some good intent ? Who turned even more crazy later by the sword. And the WoW/book retcon make him more of a good hearted character who failed everything he wanted to achieve with some trauma behind it. Ending up by refusing to leave Stratholme and Lordaeron because this time he didn't want to lose something he loved again. It feels wierd because the original is way more "dark" finally, but still amazing. Thanks for the answer, and thanks for your work on W3 ! It was such an amazing game, W3 helped me to love WoW and it made me fan of "medieval" (if we can really call that medieval!) fantasy universe.
@@jean-onchenorsh8942 Hehe, it's a "high fantasy" universe, but the human missions definitely come across as medieval. The main difference is they have magical healing and so forth. So no one should die of bubonic plague or anything like that. Healing magic does for a high fantasy setting what penicillin effectively did in the real world times 100. ;) As I haven't read the books I can't really comment. I can only describe the intent and decision-making for War III back in the day when we were making it. Happy to answer your questions, that's why I made this channel. ;)
@@DesignerDave Thanks for all those answer ! Even if Arthas was pure evil back in that days, hell it was still better writted that we got now with the franchise... Time for me to watch all of your other video now ! You make me want to go back on this amazing game once more, sad that reforged was eh... an error ? Have a good day and get a new subscriber ! :D
@@jean-onchenorsh8942 Arthas want purely evil until closer to Frostmorne. The Culling was a major step in that direction. ;) Really just your standard entitled monarch.
I wish to refute your argument, because I think there are a few key important things that deserve to be addressed First you mentioned that Abominations are created through corpses, so at the end of the day what Arthas did was pointless. That is wrong, because we even see a cutscene of what happens to the city. The entire city is in flames with piles of corpses being thrown in piles to burn. So no the corpses cannot be used to create abominations, unless ashes and skeletal remains that have not burned are enough, which I doubt. Not only that, but also even they could not burn or use the ashes/skeletal remains for some reason, the Soldiers of Lorderon could easily quarantine the burning city. The cult of the damned works in secret and cannot brute force this. The scourge has a strong hold over Lorderon AFTER Arthas destroyed it from the inside. Second point is that it was immoral to do so. I would argue that is also wrong. Arthas did what any rational king would. Sacrificing a city to save a kingdom. He could be sent on trial for war crimes later if needed, but this is something any rational being would do Third. Other writers have confirmed that Arthas mental state broke after Jaina betrayed him. He lost faith in himself and the light started abandoning him for it. He had to shoulder the burden all on his own and that will break anyone. Fourth. He had no reason to trust a shady cloaked powerful mage for very good reason. It would be extremely naïve and irrational to take the word of a random sorcerer you just met. In conclusion everything Arthas did up to this point was pragmatic and rational. In truth he was the one who was betrayed and driven on the edge by his so called friends. Unless you can disprove all of those points, I stand by Arthas and all he does up until he burns the ships, which could also have a very strong argument for defense
1. The corpses were being burned by who? Arthas had already left. He didn't give a shit... It was the leftover townsfolk Arthas didn't get around to murdering because he was too busy chasing Malganis. 2. They were only ALLOWED to burn the bodies because taking Stratholme was NOT the goal of the undead. If they had wanted they could have completely overwhelmed Arthas and crushed his entire force and converted it to undead... But that was not their goal. Their goal was to corrupt Arthas. Mission accomplished. So using "burned bodies" as a defense after the fact makes no sense. 3. Arthas mental state being broken after Jaina "betrayed him?" She left AFTER he made the decision to MASS MURDER EVERYONE IN STRATHOLME! His step towards EVIL was deliberate and his own choice. 4. It would be irrational to take the word of a random sorcerer... except that Jaina said maybe they should listen to him... and maybe you should reconsider what he was saying before you MASS MURDER THE POPULATION OF STRATHOLME! In conclusion, I've disproven all your points and you're wrong, Arthas was absolutely NOT being pragmatic and NOT being rational. He betrayed all of his teachings, his mentors, his friends, and his family... The only logical and rational move was to retreat and find another methodology to fight the undead that did not risk your entire army being turned into undead monsters... and certainly any RATIONAL person would have to rethink their options when they're about to commit MASS MURDER!!!!!!!
1. You make a really good point. We do not see soldiers burning the dead, but actual civilians. That means that Arthas in his thirst for vengeance actually did all of that slaughter for nothing and was irresponsible. He should have finished the job and burned everything to the ground. Also following him to Northrend was equally stupid and irresponsible. 2. Regarding this point, there was no way Arthas would know that. We as readers of course would know that if the scourge wanted to they would easily take over that, but Arthas at that point in time could not know this. 3. There was nothing that he could do different other than let the city turn in to undead, but at least he can say he kept his hands clean, but if that same army was sent in to slaughter countless innocents, he would never forgive himself for not stopping it when there was still time (from his point of view) 4. Still makes no sense to trust a complete stranger. It only made sense for Thrall and Stormrage, because of their connection to spirits and spirituality. Jaina also had no reason to trust him what so ever. Power level should not ooze trust in general given the events of WC1 and WC2 Yes you did prove me wrong that he was irrational AFTER he burned the city, because he should have burned everything to the ground himself and then return to his father and submit himself to judgement. I have no idea how his father would respond though.
@@joroa7151 "4. Still makes no sense to trust a complete stranger. It only made sense for Thrall and Stormrage, because of their connection to spirits and spirituality. Jaina also had no reason to trust him what so ever. Power level should not ooze trust in general given the events of WC1 and WC2" There was nothing stopping Medivh from approaching High Elves and Paladins either.
The citizens of Stratholme will turn into undead fast not slow if they were left alive if I remember. If you leave them alive they will turn in short time and this will give the impression that the right thing to do is killing them! add the influence of the lich king(previously) or The Jailer(New canon) Arthas almost had no control over his emotions and importantly over his thoughts.
@@DesignerDave I wish that you and the original devs stayed and worked on WC4 instead of what we got now. You all did an amazing work. I will support Frost Giant and I hope the glorious days of great storytelling come back. Thank you all.
The main problem in this discussion is that designer represents the perspective of god and other side represent perspective of Arthas in real time with no information or confirmation of info that god has. And thats it without details. Decision Arthas made is wrong and its designed to be wrong. The whole story of that is to push Arthas more and more into darkness. -Lich King picked him and Malganis was luring him into trap after trap, Arthas DIDNT KNOW about traps, in real time there is very little he could do differently because of the story situation. Arthas is picked from beggining to be doomed, no matter what. - In Stratholme, you cant save any citizen, everyone, who come from buildings are already infected, so mass murdering ( which is bad from the core ofc) the entire city for Arthas in real time has purpose in slowing the scourge and putting down the army that could rise from infected people. The God know this will be not effective and wrong, etc., because he has information that Arthas in real time dont have. - Jaina and Uther walk away from situation without any big discussion or debate, the scene cover like 1 min when they are talking about purging the city. no explanations to each one, for the design purpose of dooming Arthas, because he is doomed from begin. Arthas earlier was defending Hearthglen against two large armies of undead with liches in command and wagons infecting another villages and making third army if u not stop them ( if u breakdown the mission 5 ). He's in schock, and making decision of startholme is highly more problematic for him. Anyways, the designer perspective will be fighting with player perspective, from the problem of information difference. I do not want to reedem Arthas, but in my opinion, stating that he was pure evil is just ridicolous, even designing him into going to doom after doom couldnt made him full evil in players eyes.
I understand the confusion, but there are clues throughout the writing that Arthas is on a dark path. Uther warns him several times early on about being vengeful... The Culling absolutely is the turning point from reason to psychopathic mass murderer. I'm honestly struggling to understand how people didn't see it and it has nothing to do with the designer perspective... I think it's laid out pretty clearly in terms of: 1. You're mirroring the Dreadlord's actions, but are actually being even more brutal than him. You're literally playing a game of slaughter the civilians and you have to win... 2. Everyone being disgusted with Arthas' decision to murder the populace. 3. The end result being Arthas chasing Malganis in a rage of vengeful hate to Northrend. Even if you were along for Arthas' viewpoint to the end of The Culling... The aftermath should demonstrate how pointless it was. Who did he really save? Was the plague stopped because of his actions? The answer is no one and no.
@@DesignerDave Good points, clues were clear enough throughout the campaign, every decision arthas making at culling and after is at least questionable from player point, not saying immoral of evil, there is no denying from me that it is the dark path to doom. The problem is still in perspective of situation 1.player vs designer perspective is clear, when we break down the mission, etc., we can argue in details, morals, ethics. In general we agree with each other. 2. How we treat war? We have to pay attention what happens, because from mission 3 to 6 story is very dynamic. Arthas and Jaina see the horrible actions kelthuzad did in 3rd and 4th mission. In Hearthglen, Arthas had to battle against 2 large undead armies commanded by liches and stop the wagons spreading the infection in villages around, so lets say anothe 0.5 of army to deal with. In these 3 missions we see full war actions from scourge. Uther with jaina came to rescue at finish of mission 5. The lack of communication and information between heroes were critical due to decision of the Culling. Arthas is more willing to make to say lightly pragmatic decision than moral Uther, which wasnt on previous missions, he didnt saw what Arthas expierienced earlier. Blaming in this situation only Arthas is for me ignorant due to communication breakdown between heroes. 3. Part of community is outraged by last cinematic of shadowlands and they making a standpoint about Arthas from whole warcraft 3 + WoW perspective. On Warcraft III basis, its pretty clear that what we see in Human Campaign is like designerDave stated, no argue about that. In my opinion story of WoW is going down rapidly since BfA, and treating Arthas like this in cinematic is disgusting for me in comparison to Sylvanas, which did imo more horrible things willingly and she get away with that. Storyteller forgot that Arthas died when he picked up Frostmourne, the rest was Nerzhul. Sorry for this non consistent garbage to read, im still having fun playing Warcraft III, Thank you Mr. Dave for time and wonderful game, which had and still has pretty good impact on my life. Cheers.
dude this is medieval fantasy, what do you think that we did as human back then? what he did is indeed cruel, but it was the only choice that he can think of at that moment. what should he do at that moment? help them? cure them? trap them in the city to rot away? not only it was crueler they have demon to kill too,
It's like, the fantasy equivalent of using a nuke to destroy a city that's infested with zombies. Sure, some uninfected people are going to die and that sucks, but if you don't stop the zombies they are only going to become a much bigger problem. Stratholme is not a small town, it's a major population center, one of the largest in the Eastern Kingdoms. It falling to the undead would not only have spelled the death of Lordaeron, but possibly the world as a whole. Uther and Jaina allowed moral idealism to blind them to what needed to be done, and the way I see it, their refusal to understand Arthas' pragmatic reasoning only hastened his descent into becoming the Lich King. He saved the world by culling Stratholme and the world rejected him for it. He prolonged Lordaeron's survival by weeks, possibly. Arthas gathering whatever uninfected people were still within the city and fleeing is literally running away from your problems rather than dealing with them head on. The undead would have caught up with him eventually, and grown in power during the time he and the survivors spent running.
I imagine most people are just "memeing" when they say that he did nothing wrong, but it's truly hilarious that SOME people try to justify his maniacal slaughter :O
I've always read the Arthas-Uther arguments as shortened for pacing, and I guess I was more charitable to interprate "this entire city must be purged" as a more family friendly version. Can that sentence mean "just kill the plagued peasants but not unplagued ones"? Probably I think, especially there are no unplagued citizen in the gameplay section. If the debate is interpreted as Arthas: Let's kill plagued citizens before they turn vs Uther: The most I do is kill zombies it would be more open as a both sides debate. But I get your point though.
It's not shortened for pacing. It's a moment that is built up to throughout the campaign where Arthas makes rash decisions as Uther admonishes him. Here it reaches its peak, wherein Arthas isn't willing to consider anything other than the rash decision he just made. It's a well-told story, which is why it's good. The ambiguity people lay over the story here is head-canon stuff that isn't in the story. All you have to do is consider things from the viewpoint of a villager in Stratholme and imagine what that experience was like and it should be immediately apparent why Arthas was wrong, and seeking ANY alternative before acting was correct. Had Arthas simply stopped and thought about it, and gave Uther a chance to make a case for quarantine and clearing out the infected grain while Jaina takes a plagued villager to Dalaran for research or whatever else. In that scenario, he keeps his allies, he's more likely to defeat Malganis, he saves whoever isn't infected in Stratholme, and they still get rid of all the zombies and are potentially closer to a cure. But that's not Arthas. Everything foreshadows his rash decision at the gates of Stratholme, the whole human campaign is the story of his downfall towards evil and becoming The Lich King. The Culling doesn't make sense if it's not a step forward towards evil, which it 100% is.
Arthas was right he did a horrible but hes the right thing ,what was he supposed to do?? escape ??, soo all human become zombies and this new horde of zombies would attack other villages,making more victims, and what are you saying that killing and burning the civilian dosent help, it really helps you have less zombies to deal around, if jaina and uther had helped him there would have been fewer casualties and maybe arthas wouldn't have been corupted by having his friends back him up in this difficult time , that mal'ganis would have escaped the same does not change, what matters was to stop the infection, if you wanted to do a mission where it was purely evil you should have done that there was a cure or something, but arthas to be on the safe side decided the extermination of civilians this was an evil deed ,instead the mission like you did it , with the few things they knew there wasn't much to do, just run away and let those poor people turn into zombies or kill them before they become zombie they equally bad action but the safest was to kill them
Not all of them were zombies or would become zombies. Only people who ate the grain turn into zombies. Arthas' time would have been much better spent going to other cities to stop the further spread of the grain or re-uniting the disparate factions of the Alliance who later fall one by one to undead Arthas. There is no justification for the mass murder of Stratholme, especially given he makes the choice while at the entrance seeing only a few sick villagers and boxes of grain. He had no idea what was going on inside. That's the whole point of Arthas' character flaw... Rashness... Never stopping to think things through. We hit that storybeat so many times we were worried it'd be a dead horse by The Culling. If there was a cure it would be too obvious that Arthas is completely evil here. Subtlety in writing must be a lost art at this point, but we wanted BELIEVABLE characters, and while Arthas' actions at Stratholme are BELIEVABLE, they're still WRONG AND EVIL!
@@DesignerDave so what happens after arthus leaves? everybody in stratholme gets ripped apart by zombies and an even larger horde can spread out and pillage. I know I'd rather be mercy killed then eaten alive by my neighbors...
@@sicksock435446 Some escape... New heroes have an opportunity to rise to the occasion. Mal'ganis has a small zombie army that will eventually turn into ghouls over the period of a few weeks. But Ner'zhul doesn't get Arthas. King Terenas is still alive. He recognizes the threat at some point and rallies and reunites the Alliance. The Undead are defeated, the demonic invasion likely fails.
@@DesignerDave Stratholm is the second largest city in the kingdom. With its entire population turned into ghouls Mal'ganis could probably just march on the capital and win in the field. Then he has two giant ghoul armies...
just question about more related to kel'thuzad in world of warcraft they gave him backstory of being highest rank mage from Dalaran before he became necromancer. but in warcraft 3 there is no interaction or recognition between him and Antonidas/Jaina. did you guys intended to give kel'thuzad backstory in warcraft 3?
Easy answer there. Kel'thuzad was only one of the Kirin Tor, not the leader. Jaina was only a girl when he was exiled, so even if she had any significant contact with him when he was still in Dalaran, she didn't recognise him for several reasons: Her memory of him would have faded over time. He looked vastly different to the immaculately dressed mage of the Kirin Tor, he's now an emaciated old man dressed in filthy, tattered robes. And his face is obscured by his skull helm.
@@FlinnGaidin she was present when he was exiled in kel'thuzad short story and he even says his name to Arthas and Jaina. and there is also lack interaction between him and Antonidas (who exiled him) during undead campaign siege on dalaran.
@@undead4500 well, the rest of his history was written after the game, so I guess they didn't remember or keep logs of their prior lore history (think Draenei/Eredar)... As to why Antonidas didn't react to him...he's a lich...not one part of him looks like he did when he was among the living, and I don't recall him saying "Hello, remember me? It's your old pal Kel'thuzad!" to Antonidas 😜
Yah... I just don't bother with anything after WoW Classic. It's just too frustrating because it's written by lots of different people who just don't understand the implications to past lore but are eager to use nostalgia to bolster the impact of their writing. It's fanfic to me. No offense to them, I'm sure they're trying their best.
@@undead4500 The short story retconned it so that Ner'zhul forced Kel'thuzad into joining him rather than the two meeting and Kel'thuzad being impressed with his liege's magic so joining. And that's without bringing in the Jailer.
The point of no return for Arthas is when he burns the ships and betrays the mercenaries. At least that is my interpretation. The best part of stories is that they can be equivocal and kindling for discussion. It is quite disappointing to hear the guy who helped craft such a great story stick his nose up at people who still love and talk about it decades later. It would be great if you said you did not agree with that interpretation and have his own perspective, but the furvor with which you go after people who genuinely care about this world and its story is disappointing to say the least. I am not even someone who says Arthas did nothing wrong, but I would not call someone who says that a psychopath. My main issue is this particular invective, but I am hopeful that this is mere hyperbole in response to hyperbole. Your perspective as author is obviously important and I appreciate the insights you offer here, even if I disagree with the way you went about stating your position.
So murdering the entire population of a city based on seeing a few sick people and a box of grain at the entrance is NOT the point of no return? Really? Fascinating... The reason I called people who think "Arthas did nothing wrong" at The Culling, Psychopaths... Is because they have repeatedly proven they are psychopaths... Many of them literally took a psychopathy test and scored VERY HIGH above the norm. There's hyperbole and then there's people demonstrating traits of a psychopath and me calling it out. I'm just calling it like I see it. And the way I stated my position originally was very much just a list that proves my points based on the story elements we created for the game. But BOY OH BOY, that really riled up the psychopaths and I've been dealing with it ever since... Every time I think it's done, a new batch of psychopaths shows up to stan for Arthas MASS MURDERING AN ENTIRE CITY... It's crazy... LITERALLY... :D
@@DesignerDave It was not based on seeing a few sick people and a box of grain. Arthas witnessed the turning of people in Hearthglen and knew the infected grain which had caused it had already been distributed in Stratholme. War is about making hard decisions with limited information. Based on the concrete facts Arthas had, it is not unreasonable to attack the city. Nor is it unreasonable for Jaina and Uther to turn their backs on Arthas for doing so. Part of the problem is the neglected fantasy element. This is unlike any disease or situation you, I, or even Arthas has before delt with. These people will become an army of the undead and pillage the hinterlands of Stratholme. Should Arthas have just let that happen? Maybe. But that would certainly be a horrible choice as well. The game demonstrates that Arthas' horrible choice was not entirely wrong. If you fail to halt Malganis, he wins and has a fresh army of undead fortifying a new position within Lordaeran. Instead, the city is destroyed and people are able to return to the wreckage and burn the bodies. A gruesome outcome, but perhaps better than the alternative. On the other hand, he undoubtedly caused the deaths of innocents and turned his allies against him. If he had simply allowed the city to fall and demonstrated what he already knew to the paladins, it could have united them together as a cohesive front against the cult. A gruesome outcome, but perhaps better than the alternative. I am not being dismissive of either side because this story is one of my favorites for this very reason. I do not think this is a point of no return, because the decision is not made lightly. Arthas takes no joy in it and would rather not do it, but he commits to what is the best option before him by his reason. However, his refusal to accept the consequences of his actions are the point when it becomes unacceptable. You do not get to do something so drastic then run off without explaining yourself and submitting to proper judgment. This choice was another step down a dark path, but the denial of repercussions pushes him fully into villain status. The same way you call someone a psychopath, someone could call you a name for your conclusive denunciation. I do not want to call you any name. Your game is fantastic and your perspective is much appreciated. There is no doubt you put a lot of thought into all of this. My only issue is the name calling, which I think is unwarranted and misguided. It is more likely to cause people to dig into their positions. Making things divisive and personal. I know this is a ridiculous length for a RUclips comment and do not expect you to fully read all of it. I will end off by genuinely thanking you for all you have done and at least considering my perspective, even if it is evil or misguided. Have a great day!
@@TheLeadhound I appreciate your thoughts here, which are far more nuanced than the dozens of Arthas-stans who come at me weekly claiming "Arthas did nothing wrong." Which is exactly what I'm fighting against. Arthas was taking his steps onto the path of evil here, and by the end of the mission he was sufficiently numbed to murder that instead of staying to burn the corpses (which he definitely does not do in The Culling) he rushes off to Northrend to chase Mal'ganis and his "vengeance." That's the point of The Culling... That is the stepping stone from the path of the righteous to that of an evil tyrant... Any argument that begins with "it was okay to murder all those people" is patently false because of the most important aspect of acknowledging someone else's humanity... Arthas took away the agency of everyone in Stratholme that day. Sick or not, potentially willing conscripts who didn't eat any grain, women and children... He killed them all, and it's unfortunate that I had to nerf the original version of The Culling to add in the automatic turning into zombies once Arthas smashes in a house, because it adds a layer of confusion that detracts from the main point. Arthas couldn't know that everyone he was murdering that day was actually going to become a zombie, so he dehumanized them in his mind to make it easier to do... Hence the name... The Culling. Culling: "the action of sending an inferior or surplus farm animal to be slaughtered."
@@DesignerDave Your perspective is also very much appreciated by me. I do ultimately agree that saying "Arthas did nothing wrong" as a none hyperbolic statement is patently false. He is a villain. The only question is when does he completely cross the line. I must say I am ultimately glad there was this controversy as I had not heard of your channel until it was mentioned recently due to this. I look forward to watching your videos to get greater insight into your design work on games as I aspire to develop my own games some day. Thank you for your hard work and taking to time to read and respond to my comments. It is nice to have a respectful exchange over the Internet from time to time. Keep up the good work!
I'm going to barge right in here months after my first comment, and after we interacted in a community post, to say I've changed my mind on this. At least if we look at it from the perspective of Warcraft 3 alone - until Arthas goes into the city, he couldn't know if the populace was infected, those four by the entrance may have been the exception, and like you say a few comments below, people presumably from around Stratholme are burning the fallen days after Arthas culled the city, so he couldn't have burnt the bodies. With the expanded story depicted in the Rise of the Lich King novel I think Arthas is a lot more justified in culling the city, but no less wrong for doing so. In the book he has had a lot more exposure to the plague of undeath, he knows how it works, he can tell much more of the city is infected because the plague's sickly wet stench is coming from the city after the plagued grain had been baked into bread, there are undead in the streets _and_ Arthas and his men burn the bodies and set the city on fire. But there are still more healthy people who are simply cut down by Arthas and his soldiers, they even start fighting back after a while, not that it did them any good. But the most damning change in the novel is that it isn't a race between Arthas and Mal'ganis over who could kill or claim the most zombies, Mal'ganis is more just there to oversee the city's infection and ultimately lure Arthas to Northrend. So Arthas had a lot more time on his hands.
I think that part of Arthas' reasoning for The Culling can be boiled down to helplessness. Which leads him to panic, which leads him to a flight-or-fight response, which leads him to act on pure instinct. "Plagued grain makes zombies. We can't tell who ate the plagued grain. Damnit. We have to purge the city to prevent the plague from spreading to the rest of Lordaeron." I don't think he was thinking of the larger consequences, he was acting on pure adrenaline in a panic. In that mental state with the horror of what was about to happen setting in, I'm not sure many people would have the sense to think of, or remember, the abomination side of things. For him it may have just come down to "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few," in isolation with what he was seeing right in front of him. When people panic and the adrenaline kicks in, we all do dumb things because we can't think clearly. That's the funny thing about adrenaline, it makes you focus in on the bear that's right in front of your face and trying to eat you, and everything else gets ignored. It's a great moment of the writers understanding psychology. I'm NOT on the "Arthas did nothing wrong" side of things, but from a place of basic human psychology, I can see why he did what he did in that moment.
And that's called sympathy. You feel his pain and understand why he did what he did. My fear is people empathizing with Arthas and saying they would have done the same. I sincerely hope that people would not engage in mass slaughter of civilians in a plague situation.
@@brennoutof10 Let me guess. You unironically consider Anduin and/or Sylvanas well written characters who are totally credible rulers who don't only succeed from plot magic/writer rigging and either never did anything to deserve scorn or they did but they were forced into it.
@@galten7361 Actually, I agree that Anduin had his importance inflated because he's a good little Aryan. You are wrong about Sylvanas tho... she was really well written until Blizzard beat her with the villain bat for the crime of being a woman with trauma.
Yes, by the unplagued leftover citizens of Stratholme. Not by Arthas, who had already ran off to Northrend to chase Malganis, leaving the corpses and citizens (plagued and unplagued) behind to their fate.
In my opinion it's a bit of a strawman argument to just leave it at "killing people or the undead only bolster the undead" and "there's always another way". Paladins should also be able to purge the city and prevent any corpses from being risen.
As long as you don't kill innocents, otherwise you're breaking a core tenets of the Paladins. There were non-plagued people within the city of Stratholme, and if Arthas had said "we need to separate the civilians from the infected and get them out" then Uther would have been totally on-board and would have fought side-by-side with the Prince. But that's not what Arthas said. He said "Let's murder EVERYBODY RIGHT NOW!" Based on seeing a few people at the entrance. Absolutely NOT acceptable Paladin behavior. :D There's no strawman anywhere in my argument. There were 100% other ways to go about this and killing people would (and in fact did) bolster the Undead.
@Raion You are missing that WC's setting was still less of a superhero setting than in later lore (compare junk like Anduin Wrynns reviving whole squads of troops instantly with how none of such happened in WC3). There's no evidence in the lore circa RoC that a Paladin like Uther with his available followers could just snap their fingers and clean up a city.
@@DesignerDave So there were uninfected people who would have been just fine? If so then I guess the community and WoW has done a disservice to how the WC3 story is retold. Most people that played WoW view it as the entire city dead or not were going to turn into the undead. Thanks for taking the time to reply to my first comment
I think Stratholme is the turning point where Arthas lets go of reason and becomes motivated solely by vengeance. I think the purge itself can be debated as to whether it was justified or not, though ultimately it didn't accomplish anything, but most importantly it was at this moment that Arthas becomes hellbent on pursuing Mal'Ganis no matter the cost, willing to sacrifice the lives of his men to achieve this. It becomes an entirely personal matter and he is no longer thinking about what is best for his people.
i think the best highlight when he used and backstabbed the mercenaries. Human campaign was pretty clear arthas was turning evil way before he claimed frostmourne.
Honestly though, if Arthas had not taken Frostmourne, something tells me he would be the kind of king that would purge his own court because anyone could be secretly a Dreadlord in disguise. I can imagine him becoming unstable, victim of his own paranoia.
more time to burn corpses. don't purge the city = humans turn into zombies / ghouls almost immediately purge the city = corpses take time to turn into abominations = more time to burn corpses - + you can also deal with the necromancers that are in the city while you are purging it and you also can let some soldier start burning corpses immediately. also, the plague might have spread to other cities somehow, dunno... at least that is somewhat plausible. btw, I don't have a horse in that race. But at least what Arthas did was "Morally Grey" (TM).
It was not morally grey... It was objectively evil. Even if those people were 100% ALL going to turn undead (which was not a guarantee, despite the indications by the mission's mechanics), taking away their agency to decide how they end their lives or if they can fight for their lives is just wrong.
@@DesignerDave I was not trying to say that what Arthas did was morally grey. It was meant as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the developers of WoW Battle for Azeroth stating that Sylvanas burning down Teldrassil being quote "morally grey", hence " "Morally Grey" (TM) ".
If Arthas is in the wrong, what WAS the better answer? All lore insists that there were 'other ways' to stop Stratholme but never specifies, and I mean, Stratholme lorewise is what, Lordaeron's second largest city? I know you probably can't give a definitive answer but seriously, was just letting Stratholme undead massacre the east really better in the short-term?
So you're saying, murdering them yourself is the better option because... ? Why exactly? It doesn't stop the spread of the plague, it doesn't stop the undead threat, it doesn't really even delay them because they can just raise the bodies later. All it does is delay people from doing what they should be doing... Fleeing to Kalimdor. Whether or not anyone understood that, it's the definitive viewpoint... and ultimately it's the conclusion Jaina comes to and is absolutely the only correct move. Gather everyone left and fleeeeeeeeee. Fighting with the undead = more undead. That's all there really is to it.
@@JaakkoKola No, they lost the war because Malganis' goal was not to take Stratholme or even collect zombies. It was to corrupt Arthas... And what did they do with Arthas? They assassinated the King and ended the war... The undead won...
@@DesignerDave and then what happened to Arthas once the third war was over? I don't mean to be rude but the living did very much with a war against the dead later on despite the fact that fighting the dead = more dead.
@@JaakkoKola They won since Arthas went full cartoon villain rather than actually trying to win through war. He was trying to recruit the players as his soldiers rather than just kill them.
I designed the level and wrote some of the lines of dialogue in it after discussing it with Chris Metzen who wrote the story directly. It is authorial intent, not just my opinion.
WoW Players who never played Warcraft 3: "Arthas did the best he could."
Arthas, in game: Having a Legolas and Gimli style body counting contest with Malganis
I played WC3 but came away with the same conclusion as "WoW players who never played Warcraft 3," I guess my interpretation of the story at least remains my personal headcanon lol
for your knowledge
Arthas kill his own people before they turn to the undead so they exprince clean death no oblivion or any thing
arthas bring pain to himself to save his people soul
Wouldn't burning the bodies prevent the corpses from being risen? Pretty sure there is a Wotlk quest that confirms corpses burnt to ash can't be raised. It seems Arthas' choice would have slowed down the scourge had he burned the bodies afterward.
@@astrozombie1394 Sure, if the undead let you do that. Like they did after The Culling because they finished their mission of corrupting Arthas.
@@kabrozkabroz Knowing my channel? Oh, do tell...
Well hold on, in the game the grain is presented to the player as being what turns people into undead. Sure, a Necromancer can come in after the fact and raise the dead or stitch them together into an abomination, but that requires there to be a necromancer there to raise that skeleton or create that abomination. On the other hand if you leave the city as is, it will turn into the undead completely from the grain which contains the plague.
This wasn't a flaw in the players interpreting what the designers meant, it was a flaw in the designers explaining what the grain actually did, as it was presented as the thing that turned them into zombies, not just something that killed them and then let necromancers turn them into things. More so, you can still argue Arthas gave them a swift death as opposed to letting them watch their own family fall and eat their faces, or do you think any game where a character kills an infected family member to spare them from turning into a zombie means that character is evil?
Only if all of them were plagued, which they were not. Play Insane Monster's The Culling. It's closer to the original vision before it was nerfed for namby-pambys who couldn't handle the truth.
@@DesignerDave So one of the best parts of the story was a fluke on Blizzard's end then? The whole thing that made Arthas an interesting character was that he was put in a situation where he couldn't win knowing that Strath was doomed and he either let it turn or he destroyed it to spare the people from watching it happen. Then it lead him down the path of being in too deep with escalating bad choices until he was fully corrupted.
Now you're telling me he was just intended to be an evil mustache twirling villain the whole time with no moral complexity. I'm starting to see why so many of Blizzard's stories ended up being flops when expanded upon, guess it was just dumb luck they were interpreted with any kind of depth originally.
@@Demagogue88 Not sure how you came to that conclusion...
What is it about Asmongold viewers that they can't comprehend: "first step on the path of evil" or discern the difference from "mustache twirling villain from the start?"
Do those two sentences seem the same to you?
@@DesignerDave Not sure where you got the Asmongold bit, but here's the issue you're missing, many people viewed the Culling as a no win situation where the entire city was infected and Arthas made the decision to give them a merciful death and challenged the player to consider if that was right or not.
It reminded me of a scene from a show where a member of a group was pinned under rubble and injured such that they would die no matter what but the group had to keep moving though tried to stay as long as possible to comfort the trapped member. At one point the commander of the group is left alone with the trapped person and they ask the commander to kill them as they don't wish to die alone when the party moves on. The commander does so by suffocating the trapped member, and later in the show it results in a mental breakdown of the commander because even though the person was trapped and was going to die regardless and they asked to be put out of the pain, the commander still had to be the one that killed them and keep it a secret as others might not accept the action. The breakdown wasn't the result of just that action, but as the commander said it was the build up all of the things and having to do that lead to a spiral which ultimately left him in an alcoholic stupor.
That's essentially what people took from the Culling, the city and everyone in it was dead no matter what and the moral question was whether it was right to end their suffering by euthanasia or to let nature takes its course and what the choice of either said about the individual making the choice. That's a very a complicated topic of mortality that has occurred in reality and continues to come up.
Yet here you are saying that it wasn't at all deep, and that the right interpretation was that it was a surface level action of irredeemable evil. If that's the case, and the obvious action was to do nothing, then who cares if Arthas kills the mercenaries later on, he's just evil already. Who cares if he kills Muradin, he's already just evil. There's no escalation in any of those actions if he's knowingly just killing random civilians in the Culling.
@DMG888 Lay off fanon.
"The Culling" is so great because Arthas is both right and wrong. We see in game that if you kill the citizens they stay dead, and if you kill an undead warrior they also stay dead. But what he is doing, in a purely moral sense, is wrong. But it's made even better when both Uthor and Jaina can't come up with any viable alternative (even in extended canon like Arthas: Rise of the Litch King).
It's just a perfectly designed level and story.
Better that this people die by my hand than serves as your slaves in death!
at this time there is bo cure for pluge of undeath
It's not morally wrong to kill someone who is about to die and become a danger to others. This person is simply a bad writer.
@@khanychung He's still butchering innocent people. That's morally reprehensible.
@@ImperatorofNewEngland Yes, in a vacuum it is morally reprehensible to butcher innocent people. You are intentionally ignoring the "turning into a fucking zombie" part. I realize that your understanding of writing basically equates to joss whedon style modern superhero "good vs evil, morally grey? whats that" but surely even you can understand that some things are more complex than that, right?
@@khanychung Never said it was black and white, it is in fact a very grey situation. But slaughtering thousands of innocent isn't morally right. It this case it is logically correct, but not morally correct.
My interpretation of the Culling was always that Arthas killed the infected villagers and set the city on fire, destroying the bodies in such a way that prevented them from being risen. In the outro we can clearly see Stratholme aflame and throngs of corpses being burned on pyres, no undead waking up and jumping on the ones throwing them to the rest of the burning corpses.
Arthas could either wait for them to turn and join the scourge, thereby having much more foes to fight in battle (the city was huge - at least your map portrayal and the lore tidbits in-game indicated that - so it would be really bad to face so many undead later in the field) or destroy them in such a way, that they wouldn't rise up again. There was no other way, a quarantine wouldn't be fast enough to contain them, fighting more foes equals more losses on the human side, which again equals more undead to face in the future if the corpses are not destroyed.
Nope, there was always another way. To move on, to find another way, to flee and save those who were not yet plagued...
If you fight the undead you bolster the undead forces. It's distinctly established in the story. The only reason that anyone was burning corpses is because Malganis had left, his mission accomplished. They didn't even WANT Stratholme. It was never their goal to take it...
Even if Arthas didn't know that part, he DID know that there was a significant risk of bolstering the undead forces with his slaughter... and he wasn't slaughtering just undead, he was slaughtering civilians. If his forced had been overwhelmed at that point, they were all doomed and he'd have completely aided the undead!
Uther and Jaina were correct, Arthas was wrong. Everything about the story tells you that Arthas was wrong. That's the whole point of The Culling... It is his turn towards true evil... Through mass slaughter.
@@DesignerDave Except if you don't fight the undead, The undead forces are bolstered anyways. Mal'Ganis's mission in WC3 was always to assist the Undead in weakening Lordaeron. He had two options with Straholme, either Arthas goes into Straholme and therefore can be sent to Northrend, or Mal'Ganis gets the second largest city in Lordaeron in worth to Undead.
And out of the game, blizzard changed it to where you, the player have to target the villagers while they are living to kill them. That does change how the mission goes about.
Uther and Jaina in WC3, had no other alternatives. Nothing. Uther said there's got to be some other way, not that he had a way.
(And if you want to use the Cavern of Time's version of the events from Wrath, then we can bring up that Antonidas, knew what the plague did, and that there was no cure, before even sending Jaina out. That's why the Kirin Tor went for Quarantine in the Cinematic, but a quarantine, does nothing to cure the plague. Add in the fact that Baron Rivendare, is from Straholme, it would of been difficult to implement.)
@@zeilke5361 Fight them or don't, the result is the same then... Thus the only solution is to run and save those who can still be saved. Glad you agree.
@@DesignerDave How in gods name do you read that and I think I agree? I disagree, because you run to Kalimdor, and the Undead still show up. What then, you can't run away anymore. Nothing has changed.
@@zeilke5361The Undead only show up in Kalimdor after Arthas assassinates the King. Thus if Arthas had not fallen into the Lich King's trap by mass murdering and turning to evil, it would have taken months or even years to get through all the forces of Lordaeron...
If you wanted to convince to the players that what Arthas did was objectively wrong then you should've depicted an aftermath of Stratholme that showed the culling did nothing to prevent the rise of the undead scourge and that his killing of peasants was all in vain, but what would've been an even greater indicator of his descent into madness would be a scene afterwards where he justified his actions anyway and that he might have even enjoyed it. All we see at the end is a city in flames, dead bodies being burned and no more undead which might suggest it was a necessary evil. I also always thought that Arthas becoming evil happened too quickly but that's neither here nor there.
The fact that there were unplagued villagers and that he left before burning anything was all you needed to know it was wrong and about vengeance rather than stopping anything. Nothing more needed to be added as it would have distracted from the main story. The point is to catch these things after the fact with thought... Not shove it in your face under the assumption you're dumb. Watch The Fugitive and then The Fugitive 2 and you'll understand why what you're saying should have been done, is dumb.
@@DesignerDave i think whats your missing dave is morally gray option situation the arthas did nothing wrong fans are right but your also right, arthas has next to no reason justifying Killing massive amounts of people because thet had a will to survive and to try to stop the plauge but arthas also ij a way did nothing wrong doin because they're going to turn into zombies anyways even if arthas is a Psychopath or not we cant properly say he did the right thing or not because at one point sparing startholme would only benefit the enemy and if you try to kill all the villagers it will only cause mass genocide and as you said psychopathic tendencies that nobody ever likes. For me i think that arthas is somewhere in the middle a confused person whos trying to do what he believes is right but couldn't know if his actions is right or wrong he just do what he does.
So in terms of morally right or wrong or doing the right thing or doing the wrong thing cannot properly said in this scenario because either way arthad would have lost everyone would have lost anyway because as you said theres no cure for the plauge so try to do the right way ot wrong way we still lose.
@@johnpauldelacruz4278 There is nothing I'm "missing." I made the level. He did the wrong thing here. It should be obvious, and if it isn't, it's not a failing of the writing or level. It's a failure of the player. Genocide is always wrong. You don't know that they will all turn and the next level clearly states that not everyone was going to turn and that Arthas did not stay to burn the bodies or do anything responsible related to his supposed need to "save his people." He chased his vengeance to Northrend...
@@DesignerDave I agree genocide is wrong but when you have absolutely no choice? Man that is hard decision to make even for someone who is not arthas. It's either you give them a quick and peaceful death or give them even more pain by sparing them and letting them get controlled by this horrible dreadlord who wants nothing but only death to the word. imagine if it's a real apocalyptic scenario where whatever you do you always fail what would you do then? Can you really blame the person whos just doing what he believes is right? Plus arthas only followed malganis in northernd because he was led to believe that if he kills this supposed dreadlord everyone can be saved and then world can have a chance at fighting back the plague that's arthas point of view, he did not go there to run away or something it's to fight of what he believed the source of the plauge that ravaged and killed his homeland.
I always got the impression that Arthas doesn't know who Medivh is. Nonetheless while sailing west is better choice at this point of time that is random hint given by random hobo mage. Don't get me wrong Dave but for prince (madness or no madness) moving whole kingdom worth of people on a random hint vs staying defending and protecting them and your homeland where you all live for generations is pretty clear choice, at least for me. Now that would entirely change if Arthas knows who Medivh is and how easy it is for a prince to say: "hey everyone fuck this shit let's move across ocean there is maybe land west". Also I don't think that anyone at this point realizes true danger and scope of Scourge. Correct me if I am wrong but that's the feeling and understanding of what I get whenever I play this campaign.
More so, Medivh is the guy who brought the orcs to the lands of Azeroth to begin with. Blindly believing him would be a very great stretch for anyone, even for Anduin Lothar himself.
Uther understood... Jaina understood... They both warned him that mass murder was not the right approach.
@@DesignerDave I am not saying that mass murder is okay, just the part about staying and fighting. Stratholme situation could definitely could have been handled way better by Arthas. Whole culling is just great show of slow decent in madness which in my opinion started at the end of previous mission when Uther comes to rescue.
Well he didn't stay and protect his homeland either, did he. He genocided his people, blamed Mal'Ganis and went on a revenge trip that was clearly a trap (as even Jaina says she told him in the following interlude). We don't know if there could've been another path but he definitely took the one that helped the enemy the most-like the random hobo mage told him.
@@ernestomarcos0103 At the start of mission after Stratholme it's already obvious Arthas is on downward spiral.
I am not talking about that. I have two points and I will try to make myself clear. First I am speaking about realistic option (within Warcraft universe as a world not as a video game and about gameplay and that we know whole story)
First hoe viable is to move a kingdom and moving kingdom I don't mean Arthas and some hundred people move to Kalimdor and spwan workers from a keep. Lordaron is huge kingdom we are probably speaking about hundreds thounsands people to move on another continet because stranger told you so. Moving from a land where you and whole generations grew up? I can't see that being viable even if Arthas believed him he can't realistically move everyone and that's still leaving whole lot of people to die there while you chill in Kalimdor.
Second point I want to make and I am ot defending Arthas here just trying to put myself in his shoes. What's the other way to deal with Stratholme? Everyone said you can't do that but no one offered any other solution. To make it clear you are in front of city you know people will turn in zombies. So you either purge them or put city under quarantine while you come up with another solution. While you are thinking how to deal with it Mal'Ganis turns whole city in one huge swarm army that's way harder to deal with then if you did it piece by piece. Does Arthas have enough soldiers to put this huge city in quarantine?
I am not telling he is correct just want to know what's that different way to deal with that. That's on Arthas human side of him, not to mention that he already started to go mad in mission before that, at very end when he is standing alone just before Uther arrives.
This is just my opinion I am not necessarily correct just want to say that despite Arthas being wrong he is also not given some slack he tried his best at the given moment with what he had on top of creeping madness.
In the dungeon version of the Culling of Stratholme in WoW you also have Arthas wanting to mercy kill civilians before they have to suffer from transforming into a zombie and having to attack their loved ones. Even if the civilians were lost to the plague the most righteous thing to do is to put them out of their misery before things escalate quicker. You will also deny Mal'Ganis a much stronger army.
It doesn't deny Malganis anything. Dead bodies are just as good as living ones. Either way, it's not Arthas' place to decide for others how they go out.
@@wcure7254 Arthas should have absolutely known that the Undead threat was insurmountable at that stage. Uther and Jaina both literally told him this was not the way to defeat the undead. Even Medivh told him to stop and go West. Every mission prior to this gave every indication that dead people only result in MORE undead. If Arthas sent his entire army into Stratholme, the best case scenario would be a temporary halt in the spread of the plague in THIS ONE LOCATION. The worst case scenario? An entire new army of the undead made of Arthas and his soldiers' stitched together remains...
If Arthas didn't know and understand this at the start of the mission, he should have known it by the end, but he was too far gone by that point... corrupted by the evil acts he had taken in his obsession with "winning." Mass murder should never have been an acceptable solution to this particular problem and a rational Arthas would have seen that... Just like Uther and Jaina did.
@@wcure7254 Jaina left and moved West with as many people as she could gather...
Why? Because fighting Undead = More Undead. Pure and simple. You can never wipe them out completely.
Are you desperate to justify Arathas' actions in Stratholme because you want to do some genocide of your own? Be honest...
@@wcure7254 man you should leave It. As astonishing as It sounds, Dave cant understand the storytelling of the most important character in his own game. I would have never belived this was the case if not reading his weak responses(on Many other comments as well), the last One absolutely baffling, "commit a genocide of your own" Bro, how can anyone take seriously someone that talks like that, the ol'classic "disagree with me? You are evil then".
Strong Leaders can make hard decisions, arthas was, unlike Uther and Jaina. It's Easy to justify killing Monsters to protect your people, not as Easy to admit the killing must be brought on them to save what you can. And he hated that he had to Do It. He went so mad with rage for begin forced to kill his own, and he was left alone. Noone tried to confront or confort him. Alone he comverged all the hatred towards malganis, and stopped caring about the people he wanted to protect. That was his mistake.
Thinking he should have gone overseas from the start is total bullshit. Imagine mobilizing a continent to traverse half world through Sea, for reason stated by Many other comments It wasnt an option.
For how much It sounds arrogant Dave is ignorant, at best, so dont waste your time arguing with him.
@@DesignerDave you're an insane person lol. or just trolling i guess
All things considered, Arthas' reasoning was literally only that he wanted to prevent them from turning into undead due to being plagued. What the Scourge is capable to do to these corpses plays not role here since, as you can see in the ending, the corpses are being burnt so they can't be re-used because there are no corpses left anymore.
It'd be way harder to kill an army of undead citizen rather than smacking some ill folks so while yes, it was done to make Arthas go nuts, his reasoning was still valid. There was no other solution. These citizens were doomed to die the second they consumed the infected goods, either way, there was no way out of this for them. Being turned into Zombies would have had long term repercussions, burning the corpses would have not. It's basically skipping one step. Yes, it's rather insignificant considering the size of the Scourge's army, but it was the most efficient way at this time. Big picture: pointless thing. Small picture: good thing. And that's what this all was about. Making Arthas see in small pictures to direct his path.
This whole scenario was set up, yes, but all things considered, Arthas was right to handle the situation this way and if this would mean his downfall, he did the greatest of all sacrifices: himself. He fell so that his people may be safe. What path he was going down at this point wasn't clear to anyone. Nobody knew that Nerzhul was planning to use Arthas as his champion, nobody knew that Frostmourne was a tool of the Scourge. They knew it was cursed but they didn't that it belonged to the Lich King.
So this entire downfall of Arthas was based on him being lured from one trap into another primarily by exploiting his humanity until it was taken from him. And this justifies all of his actions. It wasn't Uther who had to bear the crown, it wasn't Uther or Jaina who had been the target of the Scourge. Arthas had no choice here because all this was built and set up just for him. Like a carrot on a stick dangling in front of a Pig's nose. This weight of his crown and his sense of duty as a ruler were the crushing factor here. If he would be in Uther's position, it would have been way easier to just 'retreat', but Arthas had to watch his future being taken from him. That's a whole different angle. You cannot think in big pictures when the frame has been narrowed down under the weight of constant exploits.
So long story short: Arthas has made the 'right' decision because the Scourge made sure that he could not see beyond the walls of Stratholme anymore.
I'm so sick and tired of replying to these. Read the description and look through the comments. I counter every point you've made at least a dozen times by now because it's the same tired and incorrect arguments.
If you really can't think of anything other than mass indiscriminate slaughter as a solution to a plague situation, try a creativity workshop and therapy.
@@DesignerDave The point that I'm trying to made here is is the empathic path here. There is no therapy in the world that can make you re-think a given situation in realtime when you have a city in front if you set up to be a ticking time bomb. Yes, mass murder is always wrong but try to see it that way when someone would capture you only to make you see how a murderer would slice the throats of your family right in front of you. Would seeking therapy be the first thing you do or would you first try to break free and crush the skull of the murderer? That's the point.
Arthas had no choice here because his humanity, his emotions, the thing that makes humans human, including their flaws was getting in the way here. There was no time to re-think because everything was set up to make him act quickly. That's why he rejected Uther's and Jaina's advice. So don't ever dare to tell me that I'm supporting mass murder, because I'm not. What I'm trying to show you here is what Arthas saw through his eyes and why it's impossible to break free from it given the circumstances. His actions ultimately were wrong but ONLY IF YOU SEE THE BIG PICTURE which he was not able to.
That's what sparks this whole controversity. There is one party looking at it from the big picture which leads to the obvious conclusion that it's wrong and pointless. And then there is the party which sees it through Arthas' eyes and tries to come up with ideas how it could have been avoided with no solution in sight because they do not have the information they need. That's why there is team 'Arthas did nothing wrong' and team 'Omegalul seek therapy'. Two factions evaluating the scenario from two perspectives which both lead to different conclusions. One is fully based on rationalism with having access to all informations they need - the other one is trying to make sense out of the limited amount of information they have. That's how 100% of all conflicts come to be.
In this case it's 'What the writer wants you to understand' (killing bad, Arthas is at a point of no return) vs 'How the player feels for the character' ("yeah fuck, Arthas got bamboozled but tried to make the best out of it")
And because I'm not here to wage a war with you: I'm thankful for getting your attention and giving me the chance to talk with you about all that. And while I'm a little bit disappointed that you're starting to toss arround that 'lol go seek a creative workshop' by just doing a if (statement == stuffThatIAlreadyMentioned) comparison, I was still getting quite excited to talk with you so thanks again for your time. Because I'm getting a feeling that this here is gonna be stuck in a loop of blasting arguments against each other's head, I'd say we respectfully cut it here and remain with 'We both suck because we're humans' :)
Hope there wont be bad blood between us and that we can get into and maintain great conversations in the future!
@@NorthstriderGaming Alright, I'll engage since you're not bandwagoning and seem to actually believe this stuff. You also didn't mention the "trolley" problem which is good, because those people don't understand what the trolley problem is.
While Arthas BELIEVED he had no choice here he absolutely did have a choice. Many choices in fact, all of which were better than indiscriminately murdering the entire population of Stratholme which consisted of SOME plagued villagers and some who were NOT plagued. I believe it was even one of Asmongold's viewers who recommended a mass evacuation in a tower defense like situation where you had to only allow unplagued citizens to pass through while periodically hunting down Malganis with a squad and fending off the other undead hordes. If you evacuate 100 unplagued, and no plagued get through, you win.
I call this, the Uther version of The Culling.
But in a world of high fantasy there are a myriad of other solutions far far superior to throwing Arthas and his army into what should be (based on previous experiences, chiefly Hearthglen) a death trap. Yes, the survival odds of Arthas in a real version of an undead assault on Stratholme would be somewhere between 1 and 0 out of 100. The last time Arthas tried to hold out against an all out undead attack, he would have died without Uther and his Paladins... and Arthas had already sent Uther away.
The whole point of The Culling, is that ARTHAS could not see any other solutions to this problem than mass murder... It was a reflection of his personality... His brashness, his arrogance, his myopia in seeing the larger picture... Which led him on this path towards evil acts and refusing to consider any other possibilities.
So when I see other people saying they'd have done the same in his situation... It's a good indication they have similar traits to the fatally flawed young prince in question.
Which makes me deeply concerned for their mental well-being.
"But it's just a video game." Yes, and video games can teach us a lot about ourselves... That's the beauty of the medium. It makes you complicit in the actions of its protagonists, and allows you agency in deciding how things can play out (sometimes). The Culling is something I wanted players to feel bad about doing... So I get quite concerned when people talk about how "of course we killed the villagers before they would turn, it's so much easier."
As one deeply disturbed individual did, whom is now hiding in my Discord and hunting for information to try and use against me... Weird champ...
@@NorthstriderGaming TLDR: People who understand why Arthas did what he did, but recognize it was wrong, are not what I'm concerned about.
OP thinks Kylo Ren had great writing.
No, in the Culling, the villagers were already infected so they'd become zombies anyway. If you destroy a house and let them stay out without killing them, they turn into zombies. The villagers were already lost. Arthas killing them, also burns their bodies as seen in the cinematic after the mission with Jaina, so the bodies can't be used to be turned into the undead. Also to prevent spreading the plague further.
You also start the mission before Mal'Ganis shows up.
Arthas showed a lack of humanity, though it's hard to blame him. He dealt with the soon-to-be undead before they could become an even greater threat but became less human in the process. It was a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, and unsurprisingly, by the end of it all, he was damned.
I still don't see Arthas as a villan, just someone who was dealt a bad hand. I can't blame him, which is exactly why the writing was so good.
Malganis was there waiting the whole time. Remember that it was entirely orchestrated. He never even cared what happened at Stratholme as long as Arthas went mad with vengeance. The Culling was what The Lich King wanted Arthas to do.
The villagers were already lost, so there was no reason to kill them. The plague was already spread everywhere so there was no reason to kill them. The purpose of killing them was to turn Arthas evil. It did not do anything positive for his Kingdom. There was no benefit to the slaughter. None.
@@DesignerDave
I can see that Arthas was manipulated, he was impulsive and he didn't listen to Medivh, but Medivh himself could have done a much better job of trying to explain himself.
> The plague was already spread everywhere so there was no reason to kill them
Can we agree that if you want to kill the undead, it's better to kill them and burn their bodies before they turn?
I can only blame Arthas for being impulsive and YOLO-ing Frostmourne when he knew it was cursed. Now did he even remotely know what that curse meant? I don't think so, so I can only really blame Arthas for being naive.
This ended up lengthy, but bare with me (though I am quite drunk).
I have come across the idea that Arthas did nothing wrong only recently and replayed the human campaign with that in mind. I do not know the storyline canon (i.e. just found out that zombies become ghouls over time, which in hindsight makes sense) so please give me a little leeway as I am not an avid supporter of the theory but have some thoughts that might be valid here.
When looking at the choices Arthas made during the campaign, they did ultimately take him down an evil path, but aside from his inherent hard-headedness and blind devotion to doing the 'right' thing, his choices were clear and logical - and by that I mean that they were not wrong per se.
The point you have raised about the Abominations being stitched from dead bodies and the fact that Arthas should have understood that it was futile to decimate the city for this reason is something I didn't consider before. However, the destruction of the city has lead to Lordaeron holding dominion over the city post-culling and burning the bodies before they can be used to create Abominations. That is, in essence, exactly what Arthas's intent was - to make sure that his subjects do not become a part of the army of the undead; and that is exactly what he achieved. We see in the inter-mission cutscene that the survivors are burning the dead bodies beyond the point of resurrection or any form of functional assembly. Be it as cruel as it may, the people of Stratholme were doomed to be a part of the undead army and Arthas did stop it.
I assumed that the brilliance of this story writing was the fact that the choice which benefits Humanity the most was inherently cruel and lead to destruction and death of the innocents. When I played this mission as a 12-year old I was fascinated by the fact that it made me question what is right and wrong rather than telling me the answer. Are sacrifices, even seemingly evil ones, sometimes necessary for the greater good? And although we see that this decision was made by a man on a doomed path who slowly lost the grip on his values and morality in favour of his ambition which slowly crippled his heart and judgement, the question the player is asked to consider is whether making a decision in a lesser vs. greater evil situation should even be made.
I know that ultimately Warcraft is only a game and people's passions run hot the more they play and love the characters that make up the world. To me, however, this was a lesson in difficult choices - if you act, it is wrong; if you don't act, it is also wrong. There is no winning solution here (the game forces you to make a choice there and then) and thus it makes you question the choices that you yourself make in real life. Sometimes there is no choice that allows you to walk away with your dignity intact. Uther, the Lightbringer walked away. Jaina walked away. Together with their armies. The blood of the people who would have been slain by the undead from the city would have been on their hands. And should any of those be, inevitably, turned undead then the blood of the people that those beings kill would be too. And so on. Arthas is the reason why Jaina and Uther remained pure characters rather than those who selfishly refused to save more lives because it felt wrong to them personally at the moment and they lacked the foresight to make a decision.
This is similar to the young Hitler conundrum. Had you moved back in time and met the 12-year old him, knowing that no matter what you do you could not prevent him from causing the Holocaust unless you kill him, would you? It's such a difficult question and in this case I can entirely see why people say Arthas did the right thing.
In summary to the points I took from the video above:
1. Ravagers Of The Plague Mission: Corpses can be sewn together to form abominations:
Culling of Stratholme prevented that by killing the doomed people and burning their corpses afterward, thus making the city a wasted effort for The Scourge.
2. Uther's 'The undead ranks are being bolstered every time our warrior falls in battle:
Culling of Stratholme prevented that by burning the bodies afterward, having pushed the undead back.
3. Arthas gets a warning from Medivh himself:
Arthas is not familiar with Medivh, nor is he a mage familiar with the mystical arts, or however a paladin of his statute would call those premonitions & Jaina's advice. One could call this stupidity - which is a perfectly valid point - but not trusting a 'prophet' is hardly an evil choice. For all Arthas knew he could have been a powerful shapeshifting necromancer with a goal to stop Arthas and that is why Jaina sensed power about him. Either way, this is not a good vs. evil point.
4. Killing of people of Stratholme will do literally nothing but (Arthas) does it anyway:
(Basically the main body of this post. Culling of Stratholme allowed Humanity to hold the dominion over the city and ensure that the bodies of the infected can neither be resurrected nor resewn into Abominations. A difficult and questionable decision, but one ultimately making the Humanity's battle easier)
5. Petty competition with the Dreadlord:
(The competition with Mal'Ganis was petty. Egotical and self-centred. This is where Arthas's character turns for the worse and loses my vote of confidence. Whereas the Culling of Stratholme could have been defended as a logical choice - which I believe it ultimately was - this becomes a turning point. From a heroic Prince who takes on a burden of making an impossibly difficult decision Arthas turns into a little kid who wants revenge and is willing to sacrifice anything to get it. It's a turning point and THIS is the first evil (or selfish) choice he makes.
I'm sure that others who have more knowledge and understanding of the Lore will be able to add more, but these are my five cents.
Thanks if you've read it all and I hope my thoughts broadened your thoughts. Hope you have an awesome day! Slava Ukarini!
The only reason they were allowed to burn the bodies is because Malganis had accomplished his goal of corrupting Arthas. They did not want to kill him... Ultimately, you're justifying his actions by the outcome, a culled city... Mass genocide... But if The Lich King had wanted Arthas dead, the whole thing would have gone very differently. You win the mission by corrupting Arthas via genocide, not by defeating Malganis.
@@DesignerDave Thanks for replying, Dave.
I know that in this case I am playing the devil's advocate so the points I make are more of an attempt to justify actions that are fundamentally tainted by evil and pose difficult questions. Had it not been the case, I don't think people would even question Arthas. I believe that the very moral ambiguity that's brought up by other players makes the choices we witness in the campaign that much more powerful and important to discuss.
I can definitely imagine the scenario in which Arthas is killed by the undead - it shouldn't be too difficult given the premise of the previous missions either (such as the defence of... was it Heartglen? The 30 minute defence mission. Apologies if I get the names wrong; I'm not great with those). Neither would I see it as too much of a stretch to see Mal'Ganis using Frostmourne to steal Arthas's soul at the start of the game and kill King Therenas on Lich King's orders, had it been a strategic move that pushed the undead forward and lead to Kel'Thuzad staying 'alive' and being able to command the Scourge in its early to mid stages with Lordaeron in utter dismay. I understand that (thought maybe I am going against the lore which I don't know off by heart, so if you know better please correct me).
In the post above I am justifying Arthas's actions by the immediate and perceived positional outcome because I believe that in the end this is the only real way we can make judgements (be it in real life or a game). Perhaps it's my fault for seeing too much into a story or trying to taint a fantasy game with too much realism, but to me the question posed by this mission was an important one. Perhaps, the creators of the story and the mission (a humble bow to you with my 12-year-old-self's thanks) have created something that was not fully anticipated during the creation of the story and the stage of the game.
As Arthas is just a person who only sees events right in front of him and has limited access to information about the entire world (like we all do), should he choose what makes sense in the moment then fundamentally his choices make logical sense. The same criticism that is applied to him in this mission can be applied to Uther and Jaina for the reasons I raised in my previous post - thus undermining the good and evil approach to the entire situation.
Whether or not this was the Lich King's will or not is irrelevant at this point as Arthas has no idea of it. It's kind of like saying 'well, if he knew this was the case all along he would have acted differently.' That is true and he most certainly would. But at the time he didn't. The same way we do not. We have scraps of information to work with and the question of whether a choice is ultimately good or evil comes down to, I believe, a combination of what we want to achieve and what we know at the time. This is exactly what Arthas has to work with. He wants to achieve the goal of saving his people without the long-term knowledge of the Lich King's plan (I don't want to be that guy, but we are in the exactly same situation with Ukraine. -disclaimer: I DO NOT BELIEVE THE FOLLOWING. THIS IS JUST FOR ARGUMENT'S SAKE - If Putin is doing evil crap right now, but in long term it means saving the world, would his current actions be good or evil?)
This is the question we face in the real life and as the characters are plunged into the world that limits their knowledge, we have to ask ourselves what is right and wrong in the same way. I have a feeling that this is what makes the characters of Warcraft 3 relatable.
I believe that realising this problem's fundamentals is what makes people question whether what Arthas did is right or wrong. All I am trying to point to is that the question posed by the mission is far more complex than what we may initially think - and perhaps people who created the missions have another opportunity to see the hidden depth of the work they produces that they themselves haven't even realised at the time.
Perhaps I am wrong but if that wasn't the case, would there be a community questioning the morals of the main character?
Anyway, great work Dave and thanks for sharing. Hopefully a good and insightful discussion will come of this.
@@piotr8821 War is never the solution to final peace. War only creates more war, more bitter rivalries, more wounded soldiers with vendettas, more broken families with hate in their hearts.
Culling the population of Stratholme was wrong from every point of view and even the mission tells you this.
What are you doing in The Culling?
You're in a mass murder competition with Malganis... The only way to win is not to play. But obviously that's not a viable solution in a linear story like Warcraft III.
I'm glad that people have sympathy for Arthas, but I freak out when people have empathy for him and say they'd do the same thing... That's why I had to make this video.
@@DesignerDave Hi again,
War is a disgusting wheel of mutual hatred, pain and suffering. It is never a solution to peace. At its best it breeds generations of resentment, at its worst it leads to cruel decimation of the innocents. But this was not an act of war on behalf of Arthas. Undead and Humans are not at war - this is a straight up cruel genocide and Kel-thuzad makes it clear by saying 'cleansing the land of the living, of course'. Arthas was put in a situation where innocents were being slaughtered by the thousands and he had to make a choice whether he is okay with his people being murdered and turned into the undead causing even more death and suffering in perpetuity or stand up, make a difficult and fundamentally cruel choice of sacrificing some now in order to save more later. What happened to his character was a different issue - he did it out of spite and pride, but ultimately his choice, no matter the motivations, would be beneficial to the people elsewhere.
It would be great if the Undead and Humans could sit down and negotiate terms of truce. But, the campaign clearly portrays the undead as blood-thirsty, mindless beings that seek nothing but death and destruction - even at their own sacrifice. It is not the same as the real world. I think you are missing the point raised by those who point out that Arthas was doing the logical thing. His actions had an actual impact of preventing the Lordaeron from being weakened further (would you rather face an army of 10,000 or 12,000? Those extra 2000 will slaughter innocent civilians and by walking away and choosing to not make the difficult choice at the time you are responsible for all the death and pain those 2000 would have caused. Just because you walked away it doesn't mean your choice didn't have consequences. On the contrary. You, by making that very choice, have lead to murder and slaughter - all those deaths you could have prevented, but you didn't. Just because you didn't see them happen does not mean that they didn't. This is why people look at the cruelty of the Culling and point out that it saved many more lives later on). War in real life and the genocidal situation of WC3 are nothing alike. But there is one point that you seem to take for granted and I believe this is the main point of contention that Arthas's supporters raise:
Walking away from a conflict leads to consequences just as much as choosing to stay in it does. Had the West chosen to walk away from WWII and ignore the evil done in the name of Holocaust then they would be just as guilty of it. Unless you believe that Hitler should have been allowed to do as he pleased, which I don't think you would support. Arthas, when posed with the same question acted whilst Uther and Jaina walked away. All three of them are responsible for death - only so it happens that Arthas took all the blame and his actions directly helped Humanity. People see this as fundamentally unfair since they all share the same blame but Arthas is condemned for it despite doing something that ultimately lead to saving lives. But Uther and Jaina choosing to allow the Scourge to bolster their armies and cause even more pain and suffering are fully to blame for all the death that would have followed. Frankly, even as a kid I was upset by the fact that Uther, the man who was supposed to be the righteous one, chose to not fight for the innocents of the city (By the way, it would have made the campaign even more intriguing - having Arthas and Mal'Ganis try to slaughter the city with Uther and Jaina trying to evacuate the people would make for an even more awesome mission in my opinion). Prince or no prince, being suspended or not, Uther did not stay there to help people but went away after making empty threats and 'washed his hands' of the culling. A very convenient thing to do when someone else makes the difficult choice and takes the blame. His actions, had Arthas not done what he did, would have lead to more death and suffering.
This is the famous train conundrum. You stand on a bridge over train tracks. A train is racing out of control and can't be stopped with 5 people behind the bridge tied to the tracks. They will inevitably be killed... unless... you personally push off a very big guy onto the tracks and derail the train. This is the only way to save the five lives. And I believe this is ultimately the question the Culling of Stratholme raises. Would you get your hands dirty and kill one person in order to save five? Or would you walk away, condemning five people to death, knowing that you could have done something to save them.
Sympathy for Arthas and empathy for his actions is one thing. The logical thing to do in order to save lives is another.
Walking away is NOT the easy way out. It is one of many choices that leads to vast and severe consequences - and just because you aren't there to witness them, it doesn't mean they don't happen. So no, 'The only way to win is not to play' is completely wrong and short-sighted in this case. And no, 'Culling the population of Stratholme was wrong from every point of view' is not true - regardless of what the campaign says. Strategically it was the correct choice because it made the later fight easier. Morally, long-term, it was the right choice because it saved more lives than it took. I have to be honest - I am a taken aback by the fact that you choose to ignore the points made by numerous people and resort to seeing this as a black and white situation where in fact there are so many shades of grey that need to be seriously considered and not just shunned aside.
Perhaps the initial intention of the mission was to show the fall of a prince. But equally well, perhaps its creators did not consider the implications of the actions as thoroughly to begin with and the fact that so many people keep raising this is not a reason to freak out or being saddened but rather a testimony and invitation to see the moral complexities of the issue in the first place. Just because people disagree with your point and say things that initially feel wrong is not a reason to disregard those voices, but an opportunity to see the world in a different light and an invitation to question your own approach.
Having said that, I wouldn't have culled Stratholme :)
@@DesignerDave I've gotta ask how Arthas should have known that the plan was to corrupt him instead of turning everyone into undead?
Also you have repeatedly said that they were gonna die and turn undead so there was no reason to kill them because they will still become undead right?
Except from what I remember if you kill them they dont turn, meaning killing them early literally prevents them from becoming a threat to anyone else.
If you wanted there actually be no reason to kill them they should have at least allways turned after death.
I'd argue that, even if the corpses could be harvested and made into abominations and/or reanimated, the Scourge would have to gather them all up to do that, and also expend magic reanimating them, which is time-consuming, and that magic might be better spent elsewhere. But as it stands at the beginning of the mission, they've already been infected and are in the process of becoming zombies; Arthas destroying them before that happens sets the undead back a bit, and forces the Scourge to commit more resources in order to take advantage of all the corpses left behind.
In a lot of ways, I think getting rid of the immediate, short-term threat is more effective, especially when the short-term threat here is a city's worth of people being made into a horde of zombies and potentially ghouls. He's bleeding the Scourge for resources here and denying them a source of new fodder that was pretty much otherwise guaranteed. Since he also trashed a lot of Stratholme in the process, it's less hospitable as a den for the mortal Cult of the Damned and less viable as a stronghold for the Scourge. They would have to put further resources towards fixing it again if they wanted to capture and fortify it.
Thought about this again at work.
I'll go on further to argue that Arthas not trusting Medivh is completely justified and logical. You're the prince of Lordaeron, and someone coming across as a crazy person approaches you and tells you that to save your people from a threat you fully believe you can defeat, you must uproot your entire civilization and leave your kingdom behind to head west across a perilous sea to a place you've probably only heard of.
Not only does this sound like an insanely difficult thing to do, it's a huge gamble. Who knows if Medivh is telling the truth? Does he even know it's Medivh? If he does, he surely knows about Medivh's corruption and demise. I certainly wouldn't trust him. And if not, why WOULD he trust him? It's some stranger telling you the end of the world is coming, when to you, it's another threat to face.
It's easy to say that Arthas made the wrong choice when we, the player, know what the story is and what's going to happen, and what's to come. I personally feel that, from a practical and moral perspective, Arthas did the right thing culling Stratholme and putting those people out of their misery. I'd personally rather be killed than turned into an unwilling slave forced to watch myself become a monster and turn on my loved ones. Later on, in Northrend, that's a different story. But the culling was definitely the right call.
@@BigBoneBusiness Medivh's plan was just shoddy writing. He could've petitioned the Silver Hand or the Quel'dorei. He could've aided Arthas somewhere like in Hearthglen. He could've just warned Thrall and Jaina about the other on Kalimdor and told them not to fight each-other.
I disagree. First of all, listening some random mage that shows up one day in court (the cinematic) telling you to abandon your homeland and go west is just beyond reasonable. At that point they didnt even see any undead yet, arthas is busy cleaning up rogue orcs (blackrock and roll). There wouldnt be any political will because the nobility would have to abandon their wealth (land holdings) to go through with a plan for something that seems insignificant.
Now when medivh appears in front of arthas it has more credibility, since there are already undead, but at that point they only have seen a few undead and it seems like they can contain it. Im sure that Uther would tell him it would be insane to abandon the kingdom and flee west. Just like he tells arthas purging the city is insane. They managed to fight back the orcs (orcs were strong enough to defeat stormwind in WC1), so why couldnt they fight the undead? We of course know its impossible, but they dont.
In the culling you cna see in the end of the mission that the bodies are cremated. So they cant be turned into abominations.
Also, following medivh plan couldnt have worked either. 1) they would need to build more ships, since they obviously dont have enough for all of lordaeron. That takes time 2) sick people would still sneak on board since they dont want to be left behind, meaning entire ships could turn into zombie massacres 3) what food would they eat? They cant farm since they are building ships, and the grain has been poisoned. 4) the cult of the damned was around. They could have infected the grain that was put aside as food for the journey, they could have snuck on board and then start over in kalimdor, they couldve burnt the ships or sabotage them in some way. And when they arrive at kalimdor they would have to somehow stat enough farms to be able to feed the entire population. You would have to send a group colonists every year to cultivate a bit more land so they can sustain more people coming over.
If I would make the all I wouldve culled the city, enforce cremation of bodies (instead of burials) kingdomwide, and ask dalaran to focus on developing anti undead magic. Also I wouldnt piss off uther and chase malganis to the north pole.
You can disagree, but you're wrong. All your hypotheticals are irrelevant because the goal was not to wipe out humanity. Undead need humans to make undead. The entire point of the Culling is to corrupt Arthas. You win the mission by mass murdering people and corrupting him... Once the goal is accomplished, Malganis leaves. Stratholme was never their goal. Medivh was correct. They should have fled.
@@DesignerDave I think the problem here is a difference between how you approach the story. If you take medivhs word as the word of the author, then yes, going across the ocean would work. Because medivh says it would. But if you look at the world with its own rules and limitations, then that suggestion is just impossible.
I think the people said that arthas was right follow the same logic. With what arthas knew, the culling made sense. Only if you know prophet is medivh and he speaks the truth does the alternative make ense.
@@anonvideo738 If you don't know that mass murder is wrong, I don't know what to tell you. Uther told Arthas it's wrong. Jaina told Arthas it's wrong. So even if you ignore the mage you have everyone you ever knew and loved warning you not to do this...
It's fine to have sympathy for Arthas' situation, and to even understand why he did what he did... but if you think he was CORRECT, you're bat-shit bonkers crazy and should probably go to a psychologist immediately before you start genociding. ;)
@@wcure7254 Hahahaha, nice strawman. Here's the real situation.
You (Deranged Psychopath): Mass murders an entire town in a psychopathic kill countoff with another serial killer.
Me: Moves everyone I know and love to another continent to survive.
You're "a deranged psychopath mass murdering serial killer scumbag." :D
@@wcure7254 We're not moving them anywhere. We're abandoning Stratholme... Because they're ALREADY DEAD... Look, you don't have to agree with me, but I am the designer of the level and was part of the Warcraft III team and I've explained... succinctly the authorial intent here... And if you disagree with it, you're the delusional one.
Just understand that... Mass murder... Not a good solution under any circumstances.
Had to come back here to remind myself that my favorite villain in all of gaming was an accident.
I love Arthas for the tragedy of his story. The difficult choices he had to make in the name of the greater good. He killed hundreds of innocents to save their souls and potentially his kingdom, because they would all die and bolster the undead if he stood by doing nothing to save them. Effectively being made to choose the lesser of two evils time after time. Then the slow downfall due to the weight of these decisions on his worldview, which made him obsessive, jaded, and far too willing to do horrible things.
Unfortunately though apparently none of that was intended. Instead, from the designer's view, his decisions were simply objectively wrong and Arthas was just a horrible person who didn't really care about doing the right thing during these moments... Just another bland black and white villain.
Wow, what a ridiculous misreading of what was obviously laid out in the story...
No, Arthas BELIEVED he was doing what was right.
BUT HE WAS WRONG.
See the difference?
When you decide to mass murder an entire city before you even step foot inside it to see what's happening... That's RASH and IRRATIONAL... It's WRONG...
Get a grip and stop licking Asmongold's boots.
@@politicsandart7994 No, he did NOT have that information. He literally says "Oh no" meaning... he just understood this... "we're too late..." And what is he seeing at that moment in time?
The entrance of Stratholme and a few sick villagers. And again, we know they weren't ALL plagued, we know that for a fact from the interlude that comes after... But he says "This entire CITY must be purged..." So you can't pretend he was only killing plagued people because that's not what he says he's going to do...
You cannot win this argument because the story is VERY clear if you pay attention to the details and writing and understand what has happened to that point in the story... Anyone pretending otherwise either hasn't played it or is taking the "omniscient" viewpoint and trying to justify Arthas' BAD and WRONG decision with information that comes after the fact.
@@politicsandart7994 So you haven't played Warcraft 3 then. Okay...
In the next scene in the interlude which takes place inside Stratholme, Uther and Jaina are standing in the wreckage of the city watching UNPLAGUED (non-green) civilians burning corpses. Proving both that Arthas didn't stick around to finish that job, and that there were unplagued citizens to begin with.
Regardless, Arthas makes the decision BEFORE he enters the city and it is NEW information for him. It's very obvious from the intro cinematic of The Culling so there's no way to argue around this.
OP thinks Kylo Ren was well written and that Killmonger/Korra's villains/Toffee/Whatever "had a point."
@Galten Not a star wars fan so don't know shit about kylo, and barely remember korra because it couldn't hold a candle to the first series. Villains that I think are well written include, Illidan(arguably was always an antihero, not villain) and my apparently wrong interpretation of Arthas, Tywin Lannister, Joaquin's joker, and the Michael + Lucifer combo up until season 5 of supernatural. The running theme here is that they are conflicted characters with nuance that adds up to more than bad guy do bad thing cause bad.
I’ve always seen Heartglen’s mission as the game’s way of telling us that if Arthas’ forces were almost wiped out by a village and a bunch of farms, doing nothing at Stratholme, the 2nd most important city of the kingdom, would cause the situation to completely spiral out of control and seal the fate of Lordaeron. Besides, the corpses are burned in the cutscene after the culling, so I don’t believe that they could be raised as undead
I don’t think it’s rational for a prince to simply abandon his kingdom due to a warning from a mage that not even Antonidas recognised and listened to. Besides, Medivh didn’t really tell them to flee the undead, who are described as a force that advances unrelentingly, can raise up any creature, and doesn’t even need rest. Just to stand their ground where it mattered the most and cooperating with other races
Arthas is impulsive, but the game portrays him as someone who approaches common villagers, cares about their well-being, believes in the Light, ans is always willing to lead the troops even against terrible odds.
Vengeance obviously was part of the reason why he pursued malganis, but this isn’t incompatible with the idea that this was fueled by what he did to his kingdom. In fact, this is exactly that he mentions to Muradin when he tries to talk him out of the path of vengeance, and this idea is repeated when he claims Frostmourne, asking the spirits to help him save his people in exchange of any price
And we have to add at least one final piece: the lack of information. Arthas was sent on a mission that basically no one took seriously (human campaign first cinematic), and he suddenly finds a terrible plague that can wipe the kingdom. No one knew basically anything significant about it, but Arthas knew that it spread fast, and how dangerous it was throughout his journey. He pursued Kelthuzad at first because he saw it as a main figure, and later on, he makes the same mistake pursuing Malganis, but Arthas doesn’t really has any way of knowing that everything was a trap orchestrated by the Lich King and the Burning Legion. He just found himself on a catastrophic scenario and had very limited information
When people say that “Arthas did nothing wrong” they don’t mean that the culling wasn’t an atrocity. Just that the game gives us enough hints to at least understand why he did it, making it an extreme morally grey decision, which is what makes it great as a story element
1. Hearthglen demonstrated that Arthas on his own could only hold out against the undead. If Stratholme would be worse, then Arthas was being even stupider than we thought when he decided to go it alone against Mal'ganis.
2. The corpses were not burned by Arthas, they were being burned by the survivors of Stratholme, demonstrating that Arthas was so eager for his vengeance he didn't stay to finish the job, and that there were indeed unplagued villagers in Stratholme.
3. Arthas didn't have to abandon his kingdom, but murdering his own people to save them is exactly the sort of thing a madman does as he goes off the deep end and is crushed by his responsibilities. Hence why The Culling was a demonstration of Arthas' descent into evil and madness.
4. Arthas cares about his people... UP UNTIL we get to The Culling. That's the point. It's in the name... "The Culling" which has its definition in killing sick FARM ANIMALS... That's the mindset Arthas adopts here to justify mass murder. It's a descent into evil, and it's spelled out in so many ways that apparently there are still people who miss the whole point of how the narrative gets to this moment.
5. "Saving his people" is the thin veneer of moral justification Arthas has left when he takes up the sword. Everyone believes they're the hero in their own story, but Arthas, at the start of The Culling, stepped off the path of heroism into darkness. Him taking up Frostmourne was the final eschewing of that humanity... and what does he do next? Murders his own father and causes the fall of his Kingdom... See how it's a slow transition over time that culminates in the act of complete betrayal of his people? That's the whole point of the narrative.
6. Yes, Arthas had very limited information and he broke down and started making really bad decisions... to the point he stepped off the path of good and delved into evil at The Culling, and then more so with each successive act until he became TRULY UNREDEEMABLY EVIL! That's the point of the story... That's the story that is told. Maybe if Arthas had more information or a less strict mentor he'd have done something differently... and maybe maybe if Hitler had become a successful artist we wouldn't have had WW2... but it played out as it did...
7. There is nothing morally grey about The Culling. Everything from the title, the story, the cinematics, the dialogue, and the mechanics of winning the mission, all tell you that this is evil and bad and not good at all. The only reason people were confused at all is because you HAVE to do it to move forward, and our brains are very very good at justifying things that we've done as the "right" thing to do. Even when it's totally and utterly wrong.
I can't believe the guy that designed the level is wrong.
I'll edit this in as above is not productive to the argument:
So instead of culling strat, you suggest they just let the city fall. For what? To starve it out? You mean to say that the undead are limited to strat and cannot leave? That's likely the only way your "just leave it alone" approach could ever succeed.
Or maybe you just think that it won't bolster forces. If that's the case then you should check out how the undead work its wild.
You can't just make a wild claim like this. I've noticed down in other comments you just say "Just find another way". I sincerely hope you aren't over other employees with a viewpoint like that.
Yes, he needed to find another way. He's the Prince... He could have rallied the mages of Dalaran, rallied the elves of Quel'thalas, etc... Gotten them altogether to find a new solution now that he understood how serious the threat was. But instead, he went on a civilian killing spree trying to one-up Malganis and then chased him to Northrend.
Arthas was wrong to commit mass murder. The only way someone could justifiably say "Arthas did nothing wrong in The Culling" is if they only waited until after people turned into zombies to kill them. That's the only place where there's ambiguity in that mission in terms of where Arthas was at on his journey to evil.
The Undead in WC3's rules aren't like a Romero movie. They need to be raised through necromancy with the Lich King's army making needing a magical plague which needed plague cauldrons placed around Lordaeron. Had Stratholme failed and Arthas managed to rally the Alliance (or its remaining members) the Scourge would've had a deep setback if not been crushed.
I believe they (or should I say, you?) should've made it more clear that he was wrong in the game.
Maybe after the Culling, there would be some evidence that people have found a way to cure the plague, so if Arthas just waited, it would've been fine.
Or maybe, you should've shown that not everyone is actually infected, but Arthas has no way of knowing and just kills everyone (delay the actual transformation significantly, so the player can't afford to wait, but if they do, they would see that not everyone transforms. Maybe even randomize the time to mess with the player further.). Or maybe give a hint that Mal'ganis doesn't really want to win this “contest”.
But Arthas didn't just kill everyone. He had their bodies burnt too, so there's not going to be anything to raise, and the Scourge doesn't have to wait for every zombie to be turned into a ghoul, they don't have to wait to stitch them together into abominations. When Stratholme falls, one of Lordaeron's largest cities will be turned undead. That's a huge army to contain, let alone defeat.
Burning down Stratholme doesn't slow down the Scourge when they can use ghosts for troops.
designer dave shoud play "his" games a bit more. they were burning the bodies at the end so no undead would be raised. and i didn't kill any humans, i let the all turn first.
arthas was a hothead prince willing to prove himself. coming from the previous mission where you had to defend a small village against undead, and failing due to overwhelming numbers, he got scared and maybe traumatized. stratholme one of the bigger cities and would produced endless hordes of zombies and would have meant the end of all eastern kingdoms.
You can watch my playthrough... Nice shitty dig though.
Regardless of what Arthas believed... he was WRONG to mass murder civilians. That's all I'm saying. The idea that he was "correct" to mass slaughter civilians at Stratholme is absolutely antithetical to everything the story has setup here. That's my point... And if you missed that before, fine... but you can't miss it now because I've laid it all out.
You should replay the game too. Those piles of bodies were small af compared to how many people lived in Stratholme. No way all bodies got burned.
@@DesignerDave WHY is it "wrong" to mass murder people turning into fucking zombies? Do you even think about the things you are saying? Your feelings mean NOTHING when inaction will lead to more innocent deaths and the possibility of losing EVEN MORE cities due to a mass invasion of fucking zombies. Try thinking with your BRAIN instead of your childing feelings for once, it will make you a better writer.
Novels and post-RTS lore doesn't count. Remember.
"Arthus killed civilians"
Whom he believed and seemingly were all infected and going to turn undead, escape out from strat, seek more people, and kill or infect them.
"Just run away, or you bolster the undeads forces"
Undead don't just infinitely keep getting back up, within the game and the lore you kill a zombie it's gone, the infection was being spread by the cultists and the dreadlords, not only was it Arthus's Duty to stop it, but it was Uther's as well and he just peaces out.
"Jiana and Uther were right to just leave"
To offer no other solutions and just abandon Arthus in the situation he was stuck with and pretend Stat was not their problem or responsibility was not only cowardly but a huge betrayal of their friend and their kingdom.
"In the original version of The Culling"
Sorry but your company put out what they put out.
At least you seemingly deleted the video calling people deranged lunatics who need therapy along with the comment claiming they might "hurt someone".
And you also agree that if Uther stuck around they could of stomped the entire situation and he was abandoning Arthus to die, thus bolstering the undead's forces, thus making Uther a giant idiot.
Uther's friends pushed him away and lead him down his path, he made terrible decisions, and didn't allow himself to look past his reactionary decisions, but at the same time the wise paladin and wise beyond her years mage couldn't think of anything better to do than just abandon arthus to fight alone.
1. Arthas decided to kill the entire city of Stratholme based on seeing a few civilians at the entrance and a couple crates of grain. He had NO idea what was actually going on inside.
Moreover, there's nothing in Warcraft 3 that indicates zombies spread the plague. All zombies come from infected grain in Warcraft 3...
2. Undead do keep coming back. Zombies can become ghouls, ghouls can become abominations, and even burned corpses can become skeletons.
3. Uther did not "peace out." I guess you haven't played The Culling, but when Uther says he won't massacre an entire city, it's Arthas who accuses him of treason and sends him packing with his entire Paladin order. Arthas SENT him away BY COMMAND... When Jaina saw Arthas was beyond reason, she left too.
4. If Arthas had simply said "we'll save who we can, but anyone afflicted by the plague must be purged," MAYBE Uther and Jaina would have stayed... But that's not what he said. He said he was going to purge THE ENTIRE CITY... based on nothing but a few boxes of grain and some coughing villagers at the entrance.
5. Uther is not "a giant idiot." He's lawful good, and he refused to break his oath to protect his people, but when he was accused of treason and sent home by Arthas, he had to obey that command because it did no harm.
6. Arthas is a gigantic idiot for not stopping to think about things, and that's the entire point of his character. He is rash and impetuous and did not think things through before acting, and as a result, his actions at Stratholme DOOMED ALL OF LORDAERON!
So from any perspective, Arthas did the wrong thing at Stratholme. He did not stop the spread of the undead scourge and in fact handed his kingdom over directly to the Lich King by his actions there.
"abandon arthus to fight alone"
He had no actual need to sail to Northrend. He was just hunting Mal'ganis to kill him for pulling one over on him.
@DesignerDave Earlier in this video's comments you said that Arthas shouldn't have killed off Stratholme since among other things the plagued citizens could seek to become Undead and Arthas shouldn't take that chance from them. Is it really the case from your view that Undeath in WC3 was worth trying for Lordaeron's citizens (already the case enough of them were willing considering the Cult of the Damned)?
@@galten7361 Maybe they hadn't been introduced to the Cult of the Damned yet... Shouldn't everyone get an opportunity to hear Ner'zhul's pitch? ;)
It was a facetious argument based on the hyperbolic way people were arguing about Arthas being "right" to commit mass murder, but it also demonstrates how villagers were given no options under Arthas' decision. Which is a very monarchist thing to do.
@@galten7361 They were all bound to the Lich King telepathically. So there's "willing" and then there's "slavery." They're bound whether they like it or not, but some are cool with it.
for your knowledge
Arthas kill his own people before they turn to the undead so they exprince clean death no oblivion or any thing
arthas bring pain to himself to save his people soul
He stole their agency from them, and that is more unforgivable than anything else Arthas did because they were his own people and they deserved the right to choose how they end it... or if they end it. It was not his right to do so, but he believed it was.
That's why it was evil.
@@DesignerDave Speaking of how they end it, did you and Meetzen with the other devs have a certain map of the afterlife back in WC3 era lore? Did everyone when finished dying go to the Twisting Nether by default or were there other places besides it?
@@galten7361 I'm not aware of any afterlife. Metzen was quite adamant early on that there was no "Hell" or lava on Azeroth, but eventually conceded there was the possibility of lava. My IMPRESSION was that he had a more secular and atheistic view of the world. The Light was a source of power, but not connected to a "God." The Demons were alien invaders, not from "Hell." Obviously things evolved since then, but that was my understanding while working on War III and pre-release WoW.
@@DesignerDave But no Shadowlands for sure right?
@@galten7361 None I can recall. Could have been discussions outside my area...
These people were dead already, they were transforming into zombies when he arrived. The purge was necessary in the short term to slow down the Undead. But I want to point out that I love how this mission conveys plot via gameplay: you can either wait for them to turn into zombies, or you can kill them while they are weaker humans by forcing your soldiers. This is stronger than any cutscene or text, because we are not passive but actors.
You're right, they were dead already... so why bother killing them? ;)
@@DesignerDave Because him killing them also means he burnt them as seen in the cinematic after the mission with Jaina. So that they can't be used to bolster the armies of the undead and so that they don't spread the plague any further.
You also start the mission killing them, before Mal'Ganis shows up.
@@DesignerDave Because you're denying Mal'Ganis the opportunity to create a strong undead army. What do you think is easier to deal with? 3 recently converted zombies or an army of 100 zombies under the control of a Dread Lord? I seriously don't understand why people would think Arthas was in the wrong here. You said it yourself, the villagers were dead already, Lordaeron gained NOTHING by letting them live for a few more hours but by slowly culling them Arthas saved the kingdom from having to deal with a gigantic undead army right at their doorstep. What do you propose Arthas should have done? Nothing? Just wait for Mal'Ganis to gather the entirety of Strathholme's population and march them into the heart of Lordaeron?
@@blacksnk7 By fighting the undead you only give them more bodies to work with. The only reason they were allowed to burn them is because the goal was to corrupt Arthas.
@@DesignerDave By that logic every single faction in W3 was wrong to defend themselves from the scourage. Just like you said, maybe the correct answer would've been to abandon Lordaeron and flee to Kalimdor, but we have access to a lot of informations the characters didnt. If my country was being attacked and some random old man came to me and said i should "leave my ancestral homeland to burn and sail across the vast sea because that is clearly the only way my people will be saved" then i would also push him aside as a madman. Arthas was presented with an impossible situation and did the only thing he thought could help his people. We see in the cinematics that after the battle people are burning the bodies left behind by the scourage so that they cannot be turned into undead. If Arthas hadnt fought Mal'Ganis and killed his troops then all of those bodies (who are disposed of in the cinematics) would have been yet another army thretening Lordaeron.
I still don't understand what it is you argue Arthas should have done in that moment with the information he had other than ignore Stratholme and prey all of those zombies and Mal'Ganis wouldnt attack any other towns. Moreover i don't understand what the problem is with killing people who are quite literally already dead. If you have a problem with killing people who cannot defend themselves then you can literally break down the houses, wait a couple of seconds, and then fight the zombies, it makes no difference to the story.
Some could argue that if Stratholme was not purged it could spread infected grain to other cities
The grain was already on its way everywhere. They didn't stop anything. :(
@@DesignerDave Fleeing to the west would be worst. Even if we assume it's feasable to move your entire population by boat. ONE compromised individual (a child or a wife) whose situation was hidden by the rest of the family would fuck it up. And arthas isn't king yet. You can't assume moving everyone, the entire kingdom to the west would be done.
+ What's stopong the scourge from re doing everything again to the west? Hell, what's stoping them from crossing the sea? Malganis whent to northrend.
+ Mediv is kind of stupid to say the solution is to leave an entire continent unchecked.
And don't get me started on the orc/human conflict. It made sense for thrall to move so that he could create the horde in peace.
At least , thanks to arthas: that's one less city filled with the scourge to deal with. A city that could have run wild throughout the region and cause even more chaos. Arthas, Jaina, and uther lost the moment the gain was already delivered and malganis was there before them. Fleeing/retreating would make everything worst. + the citizen attack you during the mission. they are not "innocent" nro do they look allright
Also the Scourge didn't need Stratholme by the time Arthas visited it to immediately purge it.
Like most things, this is a nuanced issue with no black/white or right/wrong decision. No matter what Arthas did, his world was on the brink of widespread death and destruction. Do nothing? Run and hide? Destroy the would-be zombies before they spread further? Unenviable circumstances all around. Arthas was a man of action, and that lead him to take action for what he believed to be the greater good. A true no-win scenario.
Good points. It is definitely Arthas' hubris and need to leap into things that led him down this very dark path. I'm pretty sure that comes across through the missions.
People that say Arthas did nothing wrong aren't arguing that Arthas made a morally correct choice, they are saying that his actions were necessary and any other approach would have at that time been a worse course of action.
In the outro to the mission you see them burning the dead, so the statement of them being turned into the undead regardless is wrong, every civilian he killed was one less undead that could potentially take the lives of the uninfected.
With the lack of knowledge apart from grain spreading it, there was also the possibility of suffering the plague through contact and fighting a rabid undead poses a higher risk than killing someone before they turn.
Arthas also isn't having a "petty competition" he believes that as future king it is better to take the responsibility on himself for killing his subjects instead of having them be forced to suffer and fight for the scourge in undeath.
If Malganis kills more than Arthas you lose the mission, that isn't because Arthas is trying to win a race and would surrender if he gets beaten, it is because if MalGanis turns to many of the people, there is no hope left to stop him.
Or am I wrong on that? is the reason why you need to cull more people than malganis can turn in that mission because Arthas just wants to do a kill count competition?
You don't see the bodies being burned in the outro, you see it in the interlude long after Arthas has left. Therefore, he didn't care about burning the bodies.
There is no point anywhere in War 3 where plague is spread through contact. There is no game mechanic in which undeath is spread through contact with anything but corpses (skeletons being raised from bodies).
So Arthas is your future King, and you are a villager in Stratholme who is gluten intolerant. You know for fact you and your family haven't eaten any grain and are therefore not going to turn into zombies. When Arthas kicks in your door and starts beheading your wife and children, do you stoop down to lick his boot?
Mal'ganis turning people is irrelevant, you lose the mission at that point because for Arthas, it WAS about the competition. At that point he gives up and Mal'ganis finishes him there with overwhelming force, ruining Ner'zhul's plan.
There is the entire rest of the Kingdom, the Elves, the Dwarves, and Dalaran haven't even been touched. If anything, those are the groups Arthas should be uniting instead of wasting time at Stratholme. But his obsession with vengeance causes him to forego that.
The reason Arthas gets into a kill count competition with Mal'ganis is because he's a frigging chump when it comes to being baited into taking action without thought. This is what Ner'zhul has been relying on throughout his campaign to convert Arthas to evil (wherein he succeeds tremendously at Stratholme). We hit that story beat like a dead horse throughout the human campaign to this point, so for people to ignore his rashness here, at The Culling, where it's supposed to pay off is shocking to me. Which leads to my last point:
All of the arguments above are irrelevant because Arthas makes his decision to mass murder an entire city based on seeing a few villagers and boxes of grain at the entrance. He has no idea how far or even if the plague has spread inside... Yet he's so adamant about mass murder as a solution he literally accuses Uther of treason for daring to question it and disbands the Paladins from service... At a time where if Arthas falls in battle here, the Undead army would assuredly win any future battles that only include Terenas' armies.
OP thinks Thanos or whatever villain they agree with had a point.
What Arthas did was very definitely wrong - but the beauty of his story was that there were sympathetic motives behind it at every step.
Stratholme was unforgiveable - but Arthas truly believed it was the best of the several horrifying options available, because he thought that sacrificing the city would ultimately save far more people. He hated Uther after that in part because he refused to go along with it - but also because he saw him as hypocritical. Uther, from his perspective, chose the worse of the two bad options because he didn't want to dirty his hands.
It's the same thing in Northrend. Arthas burns the boats and betrays the mercenaries not because it's a good choice, but because he honestly believes that it's the best option available after his hand has been forced by the recall. Frostmourne and Muradin is just the final moment where Arthas, again, feels his hands have been forced into choosing the least of only bad options, when everyone else is happy to choose something far worse for their own moral vanity.
Uther CHOSE to abdicate responsibility for Stratholme and let the worse situation play out - and so Arthas has to take the blame alone.
Terenas CHOSE to recall Arthas' forces and let the very real threat to Lordaeron go unanswered - and so Arthas has to take the blame alone.
Lordaeron CHOSE to let Arthas die alone, in sight of Malganis' camp - and so Arthas has to take the blame alone.
Every single choice he makes is the wrong choice. But he's the only one who has to bear the weight of guilt, the shame, while everyone else who did nothing gets to avoid the worst possible outcome without having to sacrifice anything of their own. It's not surprising he starts to resent them - or that under the weight of so much guilt that he can't share with anyone else, he starts trying to rationalise it to himself. And that's why he's so wonderfully tragic.
I mean on the other hand his last line before grabbing Frostmourne is "Damn the men! Nothing will prevent me from having my revenge"
He manages to delude himself through all of this is for the greater good, his previous line eve, is about him bearing any curse to save his people. But finally, on his last act of free will, he openly reveals his motivations. It's about his ego, his need for revenge and not letting Mal'ganis win.
Is tragic because it was his self righteousness what alienated everyone closest to him. Perhaps he could have seen the light even Stratholme, but by then there was no one that would stand by him. I don't think Muradin had a change of talking him back, perhaps Uther or Jaina could have but it's very, very unlikely even so, as he was already consumed by revenge.
@@alonsogonzalez7539 Actually no, his last line is that he will do anything to save his people. He does say damn, the men, but that is before his actual last line.
@@alonsogonzalez7539 i always found it wierd how he says "damn the men, i wan revenge!" And right after saying he will bear any curse if it will **save his people.**
@Bo Bence Fanon Arthas isn't the canon version of Arthas.
@no name It's showing that Arthas wasn't actually in Northrend to defend his subjects.
The arguments on this topic begin and end with the Death of the Author.
(The concept/essay, not literally.)
The story is the story... and the story showcases repeatedly why Arthas is wrong. If people missed that, they either didn't play the game, played it a long time ago and aren't remembering it correctly, or they're Asmongold boot-lickers who don't have their own ability to form an opinion based on facts.
@@DesignerDave Not a fan of Asmongold.
Look here's a example of what I mean George Lucas intended and designed there to be only good and evil in star wars. but fans and later other authors added shades of grey. Changing the sith and Jedi completely.
The story isn't the story. Like it or not Death of the Author exists and you have no control over how people choose to perceive your media. What you intended holds no meaning once it's beyond you.
You can say your intentions, you can say what you meant as canon but people don't have to agree and they aren't crazy for it. This isn't Twitter. I get that the story may be written to show something but if it can be interpreted in any possible way, it will be interpreted any possible way.
Don't stress over it. Every author/creator is dealing with the same drama.
@Dead M Actual canon Star Wars (so no Legends) has never portrayed the Dark Side as not lightning blasting supervillains.
Wouldn't burning the bodies prevent the corpses from being risen? Pretty sure there is a Wotlk quest that confirms corpses burnt to ash can't be raised. It seems Arthas' choice would have slowed down the scourge had he burned the bodies afterward.
They were ALLOWED to burn the bodies. Because Malganis had accomplished his mission of corrupting Arthas.
There was absolutely no guarantee that Arthas would win the day, in fact, the odds were not just stacked against him, but based on past levels, the assumption should have been he would fail.
He almost died at Hillsbrad... Who saved him? Uther and the Paladins. They were gone.
Were it not for the fact that the undead were playing a game of "corrupt the vengeful prince" they would have just overrun him and that'd have been that. Arthas was myopic and thirsty for blood so he couldn't see it... Uther saw it... Jaina saw it... But not Arthas, and apparently not you.
What are Shades? Or Banshees?
"You've just crossed a terrible threshold, Arthas." - English Uther
"You must have just slept badly today, Arthas." - Czech dub Uther
Czech Uther says it with an angry, sarcastic voice so the message towards Arthas is very similiar.
But the thought that Arthas does these horrible things because he didn't sleep well was always funny to me.
That's hilarious. I guess they sometimes take liberties with the translations. :)
In the rise of the lich king book the man did smash Jaina last night instead of sleeping so all good
@@DesignerDave oh indeed, the second roc undead mission where an acolyte originally informs Arthas that :
"Pardon, Lord, but a being of Kel'Thuzad's power can only be reanimated at a nexus of powerful ley-energies, and there are no such places in this land"
from Czech to English could only be translated as:
"Pardon, sir, but a being of power, such as Kel'Thuzad, can only be reanimated with the help of powerful "energy blue cheese/meadows", and no such thing exists in these lands.
I understand having difficulty with translating "ley-energies", but the final translation being blue cheese??
@@kedarunzi9139 Yikes! 😬
Translations get real iffy whenever you need to translate stuff like slang or sarcasm.
In the halls of reflection in wotlk uther says to jaina that arthas might be the only thing holding the scourge from killing everything, doesn't that mean arthas is good?????
No... No it does not. :D
He was such a good vilain. Even though he had some cliché, he was still a very memorable guy. Too bad metzen left and Danuser did what he did with him.
Yeah... WoW is too bizarre
@@salottin wow is Danuser's headcanon at this point lol.
@@user-fv7jd4xj5n At best hahaha
Eh WotLK already made him a letdown especially with the novel.
I can accept that it was morally wrong, inhumane and so on. However, simply leaving the city and the citizens would allow them to ravage the surrounding lands, causing even more victims. It's a cruel decision and I do agree that it's the first step toward Arthas becoming evil, but Arthas did not become evil until he grabbed Frostmourne.
I believe it would've been better if Jaina had assisted and blocked off any exits out of the city, then Uther and Arthas could've held off the undead and saved any potential innocents, while keeping them under supervision. The issue there is resources, an army carries resources for themselves. They would not be enough as emergency supplies for refugees and would ultimately lead to the downfall of the army, causing further damage.
If your argument is that fighting the undead will only lead to strengthening the undead, you might as well lay down and die.
First killing off Stratholme did not impede the Scourge in a meaningful way. 2ndly Arthas already hijacked his country's forces to chase a demon lord and stranded those troops in Northrend. Frostmourne did not replace Arthas with a monster wearing his skin.
Arthas made the decision to murder an entire city before he even looked inside to see what the situation really is. If that's not evil, I don't know what is.
@@DesignerDave He knew all of their food supplies were contaminated (and had been for a while). You're intentionally ignoring important facts to make your point look better.
@@CottidaeSEA Uhh, no I'm not. The grain had clearly just arrived. It was still sitting at the front gate. I'm not ignoring anything... but you are.
The fact that he chose to murder an ENTIRE CITY based on what he JUST SAW at the front gate. Watch the opening cinematic again (that's right, the one that I made) and you tell me that he's not seeing all this for the FIRST time... -_-
@Cottidae There is nothing in WC3 pointing to plagued grain being distinguished from non-plagued grain. Chronicle 3 says so if you bring in post-WC3 lore.
Arthas did nothing wrong.
He became a Death Knight so...
@@galten7361 to fight monsters sometimes you need another monster.
@Felipe Guzzon Senhorini Nothing Arthas did before becoming a Death Knight threatened or slowed down the Scourge in any actual way.
@@galten7361 still did nothing wrong. Also if uther and jaina weren't lil bitches they would've followed him to northrend and stopped it there
And doomed everyone else... Someone had to lead people to Kalimdor...
Thing about winning in the Culling map is about attack move on the villagers before they turn into hostile zombies. I've always done so, I don't know if people have done the map another way, but it's harder.
I always wondered why Uther and Jaina just left him to it. Surely it warranted a stronger appeal from them, even if he continued to resist, it needed to have some sort of scuffle to try and restrain or portal him away from committing the treason they know it to be.
From Arthas' point of view, however, we are directed with the mission objectives to stop Mal'ganis claiming souls and forming an unstoppable army. Arthas cuts himself off before explaining a key detail to Uther that he doesn't know about the plague, providing a 'they just dont understand' excuse to the disapproval. Calling for forgiveness from his father for 'what I must do' is showing at least some awareness of the morbidity of the situation. It's easy to see how people could view Arthas' intentions as pure and noble even at this point; despite ignoring warnings, he only declares himself to be saving his people and hunting what is the most ultimate baddy he has faced to this point, an incredible threat to his entire kingdom - it is an act of pure desperation.
With hindsight, or a broader understanding of the factors at play, it is easy to see how this moment was also heavily coated in evil and madness. You could bring possible classism into the fray, pitching self-justification of the slaughter of lessers as being justified by the ends. Or maybe he was very powerful, but just very dumb and easily out of his depth, being too stubborn to acknowledge that he was coming up with the wrong solutions. Arguably making him more susceptible to the influence/domination. I like to consider the character flaws this mission exposed in Arthas, not just straight evil.
The way the player is led through this righteous path, alongside Arthas, clouded the signs that the evil was unfolding, even to the player, until it was too late. With that, it definitely hits on a point of ambiguity that blasted the character upwards in intrigue for many years after... but then he was turned into a weapon enchant and fizzled into nothingness. 🚽🚽
Weapon enchant... Haha, yeah. That was sad. :(
He had swell banter though.
Imagine da Vinci flipping out because some people didn't think the Mona Lisa was smiling, with the hypothetical that the patron deliberately requested an ambiguous element. We would rightfully laugh at him, despite his obvious talent. Now imagine somebody without a tenth of the wisdom of creativity of da Vinci, complaining about editorial oversight objectively improving his art. "maLgAniS wOuLd JuST rUn aWaY!" Yeah, but Arthas would have his _loyal friends_ by his side, not leaving him vulnerable to the manipulations of the Legion.
Arthas didn't have his loyal friends by his side because he crossed a terrible threshold. There's no path to culling the city of Stratholme that includes them. Furthermore, Mal'ganis WAS planning to escape. That's how the mission ends. So he was prepared for that event as indicated by the story.
As to the manipulations of the Lich King. By this point in the story it was already too late, which is why Arthas turned on his friends and didn't even give them an opportunity to think of another way to stop the undead. As the story is told, there is no other interpretation than that Arthas gave in to his vengeful impulses, pushed everyone who cared about him away, and engaged in the fruitless slaughter of innocents here.
@@DesignerDave You keep substituting your intentions for the material found in the end product. My point about malganis was that even if he ran, Uther and Jaina would have been able to keep Arthas rooted in the defense of his Kingdom, instead of leaving him vulnerable to his flight of vengeance. His whole attitude post-Stratholme is informed by the lack of faith his closest friends showed in him. Changing that changes everything. "It's already too late." Horseshit. He hasn't picked up the sword, which means he hasn't lost his soul, which means there's a chance to recover his faith. If Arthas was locked into being the Lich King this early, with no options to deviate (barring acting in the most inhuman way imaginable), then your version is probably the least compelling version that could be presented. It reads like a didactic fable, constructed solely from a child's understanding of morality.
@@MasterDecoy1W No, I'm not substituting my intentions. Or Metzen's intentions. At this point in the story, Arthas' predilection to chase vengeance and prioritize his own personal agenda over the ACTUAL safety of his people has been demonstrated multiple times. From the very first mission he's told that "Vengeance must not be a part of what we do" and he leaps into action ahead of orders anyways to kill the Orcs and "save people." In that situation, probably correct. But not at Stratholme.
Moreover, Arthas chose to disband the Paladins from service and accuse Uther of treason for simply suggesting there might "be another way" of going about this. Arthas' decision had already been made about Stratholme. He was not going to change.
Stories are told to make a point. The point of Arthas was a fall from doing what is right to brashly bringing about the destruction of his own people through vengeance. That is the point of The Culling and the whole story hinges on that...
The only people who interpret The Culling as anything other than the first bold step onto the path of evil, do not understand the viewpoint of the villagers or Uther or Jaina. They're firmly entrenched in the "I AM ALWAYS THE HERO" trap that baited and turned Arthas to evil...
Why would the citizens of Stratholme turn into undead when you break their house on their own? You don't need to kill them. In fact, you designed the mission in a way that encouraged killing them before they turned, because they quadrupled their hitpoints if turned into zombies.
Yes, I absolutely did do that... Evil is so easy, isn't it?
@@DesignerDave But militarily speaking it’s just a burning land strategy against peoples that use corpse to get stronger.
I get the fundamental idea but I think the issue is that if applied to a real world structure which I guess is what most of us do the situation is simply impossible
To quarantine the city would simply allow the scurge to continue elsewhere and have another town infected as the men’s are being focused on keeping the town on lock down instead of stopping other to be taken
A solution would have been to show that the scurge could be cured before a certain point but it would delay arthas vengeance.
Then maybe defending them while they are human and they are cured being a real pain in the ass by some mechanique would emphasize the fact that killing them is the easy way out. Like a debuff after curing them
That would show a fall to evil more than the pure pragmatism of the current situation.
From this situation it looks more like he did the hard choice and uther simply left without contributing in any way
It’s the reason the ‘do better’ line in captain America série was so cringe.
You can say do better and peoples want to do better but without any actual plan or option it just come out as sanctimonious and hypocritical as you admit you couldn’t do better.
I like the idea of running being the solution but it’s really just a case of hindsight being 20/20
It’s basically the same idea of what arthas did the burned land strat but in a different way so it’s a great contrast but the thing is that it imply a stagnation of the scurge while the dread lords were very pro active in their story
We know that the necromancer was the real architect of the plan but for arthas he assumed it was the dread lord so again we just have hindsight
For what it's worth, I think it's a strength of the writing team that one could even say that about a mass-murderer. And yes whilst I do definitely agree with the idea that Arthas should have listened to Medivh. However, despite being in a fantasy world with orcs, zombies and elves. What Arthas did through denying the Scourge resources is actually a very successful albeit morally wrong military tactic called Scorched Earth which has been used incredibly successfully time and time again e.g. Soviets denying the Nazi warmachine resources to replenish their starved troops. I'd say take it as a you guys did really well writing a sympathetic fall-from-grace story.
The issue is that the undead simply didn't care about Stratholme at that time. They were playing a longer game. The burning of the corpses after Arthas and Malganis JOINED FORCES TO MASS MURDER CIVILIANS (which is literally what is happening in The Culling), was definitely not the outcome that would have occurred if the Scourge wanted to take Stratholme entirely at that time.
This is a meta-story argument, that has no bearing on the in the moment argument, which is what the discussion is about. What the scourge's total goal was is not what is beind discussed but what arthas thought and justified at the time. That should be the discussion. The question is not "is this objectively morally bad" but "out of all decisions, did arthas think he was doing the right thing", which i would say that yes and no. His logic of purging the city so that they don't turn into undead/resources for malganis is a logical act (if he believed that him killing the people would prevent them from becoming undead, possibly due to the stress of the situation), however it was also being more concerned with beating an enemy rather than actually caring about the individuals. Even if arthas was correct that killing them would prevent them from being turned into undead, it still is an objectively immoral act (which i would say that abandoning them as mediv suggested is also immoral, albiet slightly less imorral)
@asdfnio fanuia fabuiohui The Scourge was never shown depending on intact corpses to make/summon more Undead.
In literally every series with zombies people will kill the zombies. Often people who are infected will be killed before they turn.
I don’t think thats evil, inhumane perhaps but the motivation is protection of those that can still be saved.
Not everyone inside Stratholme was infected. Would you also kill people who potentially MIGHT be infected without any evidence? Is that not evil?
@@DesignerDave that is evil, the correct checks would have needed to have been carried out. You also couldn’t let potentially infected people just be free though so you would need to have them quarantined while checks were performed.
It could be argued that after uther and jaina pulled out there was not enough manpower for this. We are never shown the “but maybe they aren’t infected” possibility in game but that would have given jaina and uther more of a footing for their argument.
@@harryb12993 Uther and Jaina didn't "pull out." Arthas accused Uther of treason and then disbanded the Paladins from service.
You are shown the "many weren't infected" in the following interlude... It's literally unplagued villagers burning bodies in the Aftermath of Arthas' kill-crazy rampage.
@@DesignerDave so the bodies were being burnt meaning the forces weren’t bolstered and there were unplagued villagers doing it meaning people survived that wouldn’t have if everyone fled?
@@harryb12993 The bodies were being burnt by villagers, but ultimately this would prove futile, nor is it relevant to the point that Arthas made his choice before even entering the city.
Arthas left in such haste that there were plenty of survivors, and none of them turned into zombies... yet. That would come later.
I love that line: "You've just crossed a terrible threshold, Arthas."
Sublime delivery. Uther is a chad. I named and created my Lost Ark pally after him. I just used the name Dreadedthreshold because Terriblethreshold didn't fit.
I feel like these arguments ignore the caverns of time version of the culling of strathome where we know everyone on Azeroth would have died in the hour of twilight if the culling never happened
They do ignore that because the argument is about Arthas' choice in the moment and not the things he couldn't know.
Can you clarify what you mean by this? Why would everyone have died if the Culling of Stratholme never happened?
@@DesignerDave then why do you keep brining up Medivh?????????
@@master2497 Because Medivh literally warns Arthas just before he goes on his mass murder spree!!!! Literally everyone tells Arthas what he's about to do is wrong...
WoW writing being brought in
Sailing is the best option, but only because we know the whole story. Attempting to cull the diseased residents of Strat was the right move. Rash? Yes, but ultimately right (they would turn as soon as their home was destroyed). None of the main heroes in this story were mind readers, so they wouldn't know the grand scheme of MG.
Should they have listened? Yes, but we KNOW why, they don't. Thrall listened, but only ultimately because the Spirits deemed what Med said as being the right course of action. As far as everyone else knew, he was just a crackpot mage who appeared. Even if he did identify himself, that wouldn't have immediately helped either. Med ultimately caused a lot of destruction in his time as the guardian, would they trust his words so easily? I wouldn't. It's like Zeus trusting Hades in that terrible Titans film.
Compare the plague to something similar to Covid, in our modern day the way to approach it was isolate and then slowly work out methods to prevent infection and mass hospitalisation that would cripple the system. This is the modern day method. In a fantasy setting, who wouldn't immediately rush towards the concept of trying to prevent the spread. Was it horrible? Yes. Do I think Arthas was not wrong? No. But the approach was fairly sound given the circumstances.
Let's clarify then... If you were in Arthas' shoes, would you have done the same... mass murdered an entire city?
Bear in mind there were unplagued citizens in Stratholme. We see them in the interlude afterwards burning bodies. If you didn't wait for every villager to turn into a zombie, it's feasible Arthas murdered some. Does that make a difference?
@@DesignerDave Yes; but, there is a core difference between me and Arthas. I would do it, not outright dismissing Uther, but rationally explaining why. As far as we know, this is as far as the plague has spread, if it gets out of Strat, it could mean mass infection and the annihilation of the rest of humanity on the eastern continent. Also, unlike Arthas, I would genuinely feel terrible about what is about to be done. The decision is a horrible one, but given the circumstances could be deemed necessary for the greater good of all humankind in this case. What sets Arthas off IMO as a darker self after this is literally his reaction to it all. He is blinded by rage, lacks empathy and does nothing to truly explain himself which leads him to dismiss anyone who disagrees with him.
I think a good example of this concept is one of the last episodes to All of Us Are Dead (I don't want to spoil anything but recommend looking at that as a concept of a modern undead outbreak).
@@nirvanna21 The Scourge is not really comparable with works like the Walking Dead, George Romero's films, etc. The Scourge are ultimately a conquering force directed by a monarch which depends on generals (Death Knight, Lich, Dread Lord, Crypt Lord) and traitors like the Cult of the Damned. They can have their commanders slain and their servants among Humans hunted down and their monarch himself vanquished in war with battlefield. The undead in Night of the Living Dead and others are supposed to be something of a "divine punishment" or otherwise just a walking plague that has no ruler and can't be threatened or bought.
I find it sad that I understood what Arthas did was wrong and was the big turning point for Him as a character when I first played the game as an eight year old, especially when the cutscene afterwards shows villagers cleaning up Arthas' slaughter. Also it wasn't just Jaina that realized Medivh was more then a mad man it was also Thrall, Cairne, Malfurion, and Tyrande. AN Orc warchief, A Tauren chieftain, And two ten thousand year old Elves that didn't like humans at all. So if they could recognize Medivh as more and that he was telling the truth, what was stopping Arthas from seeing it to besides pride? BTW just gotta say this level is what made Arthas one of my favorite characters in the game for his complexity :)
It only worked from the plot saying it should. Medivh never presented any actual evidence for what he was yapping about and got indignant when rulers didn't what he told them to. He also didn't try to speak to the Silver Hand and Quel'thalas even through they would be well equipped to face demons.
Because listening to insane birdmen flying into the Throne room and ordering you to evacuate some 30-50 million people half-way across the world, to a mythical continent for which there is no evidence that it exists, sure sounds like good government policies to me.
The Culling is probably my favorite mission from any video game. The storytelling and player involvement in it is just phenomenal.
1. When the mission begins the quest log says “kill 100 zombies”, but the counter at the top right says “plagued villagers” showing the dissonance between Arthas’ goal and his actual actions.
2. This is not only the first time when Arthas crossed the line- you (the player) did as well.
At first you are shocked that your goal in to kill 100 people, but as Mal’Ganis appears and his transformation counter appears you feel the pressure to kill villagers fast - when the cutscene of his arrival ends he already claimed 4 villagers while you killed 0.
At that point I thought about trying to kill Mal’Ganis instead, but there was no time. I had to start killing villagers.
3. According to the quest logs, Mal’Ganis CLAIMS villagers while you KILL them. The wording there really shows how wrong Arthas is.
4. Also, every building you destroy and every villager you kill must be selected individually since they are neutral units, which reminds you they are not your enemies. It was YOUR choice to kill every single one of them.
5. I love how Arthas’ lines when he kills the villagers are the same as they were in previous missions (“I stand for the light”, justice shall be done”, you are beyond redemption”, etc.).
I know that pretty much every RTS game doesn’t change the voicelines of a character for a specific mission, but seeing Arthas treating helpless sick villagers the same as his actual enemies left such a strong impression on me.
6. In the beginning cutscene Arthas is the only one standing on the hill looking down at the village. The height differences illustrate how much power Arthas has compared to them, and also shows that he is the only one who saw what’s happening in the city (which makes you think that even if it feels wrong, maybe he knows better than I do?)
You made a very enjoyable masterpiece. Thank you for that :)
Also Shades, Banshees, being there means not even burning away corpses prevents the Scourge from getting troops.
This entire video must be purged.
Arthas : Dave made me do it!
Dave : Metzen made me do it!
Metzen : I don't know who made me do it!
The Lich King of course!
This is like the scene in Portal 2 where GLaDOS tries to fry Wheatley's brain with a paradox and he just responds with "True. I think I'll go with true", except instead of Russell's paradox, it's the trolley problem that he thinks he has a definitive, objectively correct answer to.
It's not the trolley problem. There are not two defined tracks here. You either mass murder the citizens of Stratholme or you find another way. Arthas chose the former based on seeing 4 villagers and some plagued grain at the entrance and a burning desire to save "HIS" kingdom. This was at a point when they'd done zero investigation as to who was plagued, how many ways plagued, whether it was curable or not... That's the stuff of psychopaths...
@@DesignerDave "find another way"
What other way was that which didn't depend on taking some loud hobo's word?
It's a shame that none of the campaigns in Starcraft 2 and its expansion packs had such memorable missions as the Culling. Campaigns in Starcraft 1, BW, WC3 and TFT remain the pinnacle of storytelling in RTS games.
Nothing at all? I think that might be unfair... Though... I can't name one from the Terran missions come to think of it.
I think the entire SC2 campaign lineup was a total blast, not sure what you mean.
I do think some of them were a bit too 'fun' and not enough harrowing events that kept you on the edge.
The last wings of liberty mission was for sure crazy, as was the underground hero mission on char, the rooftop rescue mission where you get the big transports, the zerg campaign is just all golden as well, and the protoss missions had some great moments too with Fenix's return and all of the Tal'darim content.
Goddess Kerrigan.
Arthas was doomed by the advancing of the canon. Once it became established that the Lich King had psychic powers and could telepathically influence others, it meant that Arthas could never be said to be totally in charge of himself. Ner'zhul was so psychically powerful that he was able to see into Illidan's mind to read his ambitions. Further, Kel'thuzad told Arthas that Ner'zhul chose him to be his champion, meaning that Arthas was always targeted by the Lich King. This all happened when he was 26.
Also, Arthas murdering everything has been shown to be effective in some cases. Hearthglen in WoW is a Scarlet Crusade bastion principally because Arthas defended it.
The goal of the scourge is not to wipe out humanity. They need humanity to grow their forces. That is a fundamental of the scourge that everyone conveniently forgets for some reason. If they wiped out humanity, there will eventually be no more undead...
@@DesignerDave I see your geekiness and raise you this nerdiness. During the interlude between missions 5 and 6 of the Scourge campaign, Kel'thuzad explains how the Scourge is just a tool for the Burning Legion. Specifically, the Scourge was to destroy the forces of Lordaeron and the High Elves, people who would resist a huge demonic invasion. At most, they were needed to supplement the Legion forces in taking Hyjal, but that was it.
If you go back to Warcraft 2, Gul'dan already raised the Broken Isles. Getting Sargeras' remains is probably what the Legion wanted in the long run.
And if you factor the Legion out, the Lich King's goal is to rule the world where everyone is a corpse or a ghost that bends to his will. So the Scourge's goal, in either case, is to wipe out any resistance to the Lich King and make everyone obedient to him. Which means killing not just all of humanity, but anything that's alive.
@@DesignerDave "The goal of the scourge is not to wipe out humanity. They need humanity to grow their forces."
The manual for RoC says the Scourge was supposed to wipe out Humanity though:
"Kel'Thuzad looked upon the Lich King's growing army and named it the Scourge - for soon, it would march upon the gates of Lordaeron...and scour humanity from the face of the world."
You are DesignerDave not WriterDave.... Even if a writer were trying to write Arthas to do something irredeemable, you royally failed because that's just not what it looks like... Having another way to "save the people" who were infected by the plague is just convenient writing after already setting up how the plague infection looks like before the culling, just like the rest of WoW after WC3 storyline...
I'm also Writer Dave... I've written for every game I've worked on, including Warcraft 3.
Having another way to save the people is not "convenient writing" it's an absolute possibility that Arthas could have explored if he were not so bloodthirsty and quick to enact VENGEANCE against Mal'ganis. A theme we set up consistently before the events of The Culling.
But most of the people who don't understand that The Culling is a step onto the path of true evil, played the game when they were 10 years old apparently. So I can see how they missed the foreshadowing and narrative context of his HEINOUS and UNFORGIVABLE act.
The Culling of Stratholme was 100% the best decision.
By your own admittance, leaving Stratholme to Mal'Ganis unopposed meant the entire populace was dead anyway. By purging the city, and driving Mal'Ganis out, Arthas ultimately, if unintentionally, left behind survivors, and prevented tens of thousands of new Scourge being raised.
Even if they listened to Medivh, you know the Guardian that was corrupted by the same Titan that controlled the Scourge, not exactly trust worthy, running wasn't an option. The giant, flying Necropolises would spread the Scourge over the entire planet.
"the Scourge totally needed Stratholme and was impeded majorly by killing off a city"
"Arthas' forces never killed a citizen wasn't plagued"
He made the decision before he even knew what was going on inside... The decision to murder an entire city of people. If you think that's good decision making, then I assume you would also bend the knee and kiss his boot when he busts in your door and starts trying to decapitate you... even if you never ate any grain...
This is incredibly silly, emberassing even, and I must disapprove the discussion around it. If you are looking for a psychopath you should turn to a mirror.
Really? So me showing empathy and concern over those who believe a psychopathic young prince was "doing nothing wrong" when he slaughtered most of a city of people (some infected, some not) is sign that I myself am a psychopath?
GOOOOO OONNNN Doctor... Explain more... Very curious to hear your argumentation on this totally not exhausted topic.
I think people tend to rationalize his actions as "Well if your friends and family were about to become zombies wouldn't you rather they died as humans?" but in the end what happens is Arthas sees in Hearthglen (after Jaina leaves, importantly) what the plague does to his people and after seeing the same in Stratholme he just goes mad because he realizes it's a lost cause. There's no way he could think he was actually saving his people, so instead he's like "Mal'Ganis forced my hand so I'm gonna get my revenge" and at that point it's clear he's at the deep end.
But like I said, I'd argue that started in Hearthglen. If Jaina had been there when the villagers became zombies she would've understood what ticked Arthas off and maybe try to talk some sense that it was pointless, but alas Arthas probably wouldn't have heeded her. At the end of the day Ner'zhul picked his champion perfectly.
Also acting like stuff from TWD or whatever applies here. Like not acknowledging the Scourge needs to enchant things with necromantic sorcery.
Well, Dave, you come out as extremely obnoxious with all this.
-First of all, you act as if people know literally everything about reality or something. If some cryptic dude showed up at your house and told you to abandon everything you've worked for because "the end is coming", you mean you would listen to him? You would totally find that reasonable? You would abandon all your goods and just go away? Are you a nomad or something?
- How would people know how the Lich King does anything? They are not omniscient, dude. Do you know why Putin is invading Ukraine and what his plans are?? Do you know how to manufacture weapons and how they work? Do you know how to build nuclear bombs? People work on limited information, and when it comes to fiction, we try to think of the characters of works as functioning somewhat like real people. If they don't, then it really is quite meaningless to consider their intentions. Tell me how Cthulu thinks, please.
-If your argument is "I am the God of warcraft so I am right", then diverging opinions literally can't exist, and so the concept of debating outcomes becomes meaningless. If your argument is your omniscience, then discussions are irrelevant.
-Your authorial intent really doesn't matter? So, Hitler writes Mein Kampf and we have to agree he is right because he was the author and had his intent... What? That's not how it works. Authorial intent doesn't really mean anything; all we do is project ourselves into the works we read and draw our own thoughts. You are not right because you say you are right.
-"Uther and Jaina told him so." Cool, but that's, like, their opinion, man. Do you know what the easiest thing in the world is? Telling someone they're doing something wrong while not providing any other solution. If the game wanted to present Arthas as completely wrong, then you fucked up by not providing an adequate replacement for his plan beyond what you know as an author. In that case, you are to blame for your own incompetence.
And to all the people saying we shouldn't argue with the dev...
Never complain about anything ever, okay? If you ever eat bad food at a restaurant and you can't cook, then don't ever complain about it. If you never learned to be a teacher, then never complain about bad teachers. If you don't know a thing about engineering, then don't complain about bad infracstructure. If you never joined the army and served as a private, never complain about the military. if you never fought in a war, never complain about war; you don't know anything, after all. Why should you have a voice at all?
Wow, what an OBNOXIOUS response.
If a fucking magical talking crow/man shows up at my door, I'm DEFINITELY considering EVERY DAMN WORD they have to say. Yes... Would you ignore them??? Hmm?
No one needs to understand how the Lich King works... They only needed to understand how UNDEAD work... And Undead gain power with EVERY conflict. The only way to defeat undead is to starve them of the bodies they need to grow their forces. Now you might argue... "Okay burn all the bodies," but that's not going to work when they're applying pressure. The only reason they were ALLOWED to burn the bodies in Stratholme is because the Lich King was playing the longer game and enticing Arthas to Ice Crown.
I'm not saying diverging opinions can't exist, but I am TELLING YOU WHAT THE AUTHORIAL INTENT WAS! You can CHOOSE to ignore it, just like some people ignore the intent of other authors when they say things like: "Arthas did nothing wrong," but you are thereby admitting and confirming that your position is one of IGNORANCE.
And no, I'm not "the God of Warcraft," I never said that nor would I ever make the claim. I'm simply telling you what WE were thinking when we MADE THE GAME. Which is the whole point of all my Warcraft III videos. Informing YOU of the authorial intent of every mission and story component that I worked on. If you want to IGNORE it, fine, but don't pretend you don't know, because I'm telling you the facts of the matter.
Holy shit... Straight to Hitler shit, okay that's pathetic... If you don't understand Hitler's point of view when writing Mein Kampf, you might actually go down the wrong path and start to believe what's in it is A-Okay... That's the point of understanding authorial intent. Arthas was evil... His choice in The Culling... WAS EVIL! It was provoked by his arrogance and ignorance and thirst for vengeance. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT! You can ignore it if you want, but it doesn't change the facts of how the story was written.
The solution was NOT TO COMMIT GENOCIDE! What are you even talking about? "I think we should NOT mass murder people." Well that's just your opinion man... Wow!
Arthas path was set. We don't have to provide anything else than the path the story was taking! I MADE YOU PARTICIPATE IN SLAUGHTER! You were never supposed to feel good or justified about it. In fact, the early versions of The Culling were NERFED, because they made me add the zombie transformation. In the original version, I had you mass slaughtering civilians who were not going to turn, and they were BEGGING for their lives... All that was cut because it was deemed too far... But the intent was the same. You were not supposed to cheer on Arthas mass murdering civilians. The fact that I even have to point that out is DISTURBING TO ME!
Feel free to argue with me, just know that your viewpoint here is kinda gross. But carry on... It's amusing.
@@DesignerDave Dude, I had no idea you were this embarrasing. I could counter every point you have, but it would be quite pointless with how you are acting.
I'm actually unsubscribing. This is very disappointing. Have a good day, or don't.
@@DesignerDave Disgusting response. Embarrasing even.
@@vorinz Says dude embracing genocide...
@@brunopereiracosta4844 You were never subscribed. You clearly can't counter any points or you would have done so.
Plenty of ways to interpret is as neccesary. He set the city on fire and was burning the bodies of the civilians, preventing them from being able to be ressurected.
WoW lore doesn't apply to WC3 lore unless you start saying le Jailer did it. And no, the Scourge once it's actually occupying territory doesn't need intact corpses or even corpses.
He was not burning any bodies. He left immediately to chase Mal'ganis to Northrend. But more importantly, even if he did, it doesn't matter, because the whole point of Arthas' character is his rashness. He made the choice to massacre an entire city without even stepping foot inside. That's not a good Prince, that's not a good leader, that's not a good person.
You can also deliberately kill civilians in the first missions and nobody did not say and do anything about it
The biggest problem with this argument is that it's predicated on author's knowledge. You know the goal wasn't to take Stratholm, but you have to consider whether it makes sense for Arthas to know that. If he doesn't, then the only options he has are to go through with the purge or think "this will make me fall to evil, so I wont do it" - which only makes any sense in a world of objective goods and evils, i.e. unrealistic writing even for a fantasy world.
Either way, Arthas is a victim, whether that's of a plot to force him to commit acts that he would otherwise be justified in or of the cardinal writing sin of making him self-identify as evil.
The whole plot of the story is Arthas falling towards evil. The biggest problem is that certain people refuse to accept that The Culling was a massive step over a line into evil via the heinous act of committing mass murder on a civilian populace against their will...
Based on seeing four people at the entrance... and in spite of protests from all his friends and the words of a prophet warning him against it...
Arthas would never self-identify as evil, of course not... But you're not Arthas, and I hope that if you were in his shoes, you'd choose a different path.
@@DesignerDave I finished watching the Pippa stream between then and now. You said yourself that you would kill the few to save the many in the trolley problem, and you recognize that many people (wrongly, in your opinion) consider the culling to be the trolley problem. That really drove home that it comes down to an author's knowledge issue - You know every single tidbit of lore and intent and everything there is to know about the situation, and you personally could make a more informed decision knowing that time was not an issue and what the real goals were, but your audience does not, and cannot, since they aren't you.
It's a limited scope of your perspective that ends up in the game, let alone ends up in the audience's head. It's hard even for the best writers to keep that in mind.
@@wrpen99 Nope... Arthas saw four sick people at the entrance to Stratholme and before even peeking inside uniformly decided to mass murder an entire city of people. That is not logical or rational. It has nothing to do with author knowledge.
@wrpen99 The Culling of Stratholme isn't a Trolley Problem since it is actually about knowing you only have the option to kill someone who did nothing to warrant it to ensure more aren't killed. Arthas did not actually discriminate between the plagued and not plagued also doing so does not impede the Scourge significantly. The one having to pick which side the trolley goes knows well what will happen.
The grain transforms people into zombies, thats really all arthas knows at that point. He was trying to do the right thing in a machiavellian way by ending the plague in stratholme, and perfect hindsight shows he made a terrible mistake. But the idea that he just randomly, on a dime, went from trying desperately to save his people into mass murdering them for sport just doesnt make any narrative sense
No, it 100% makes narrative sense because we foreshadowed it multiple times. Multiple times throughout the story he was warned by Uther that "vengeance must not be a part of what we do" to not be rash, to not make snap decisions. Medivh forewarns him that this will doom his people as well. Arthas ignores ALL that and assumes that only he is right, only he can determine the fate of his people... alone...
That's WHY Ner'zhul chose him. Because of his failings. It doesn't take hindsight, it takes only a little bit of forethought to know that Stratholme was either already doomed or worth attempting to save. Mass murder does NOTHING but play into the hands of the undead, and Arthas knew that better than anyone, but chose to get into a kill count contest with Mal'ganis anyways.
And not everyone ate the grain... Imagine you're a gluten-allergic villagers in Stratholme. When Arthas kicks in your door, do you bow your head?
@@DesignerDave But Arthas' failing that we are shown many times leading up to that moment is his pride. That's what is being foreshadowed, not some kind of bloodlust for the innocent. In Stratholme, his pride boils over and causes him to cast aside his friend and mentor, and make a rash decision. But its totally believable to me, given that he believes protecting his people is his foremost duty, that he sees the culling as a grim necessity to contain the plague. "Better these people die at MY hands than serve as your slaves in death!" He still believes he's helping them.
And the kill counter argument is just kinda silly. It's there because the player is being put on a clock, Ive seen no evidence that arthas and mal'ganis are actually keeping some kind of sporting kill count. And if we're going to be that meta in our analysis, might as well also say that Arthas only kills villagers who are visibly steaming with the plague and are living in houses labeled "PLAGUE INFECTED HOUSE"
@@LoadPast What do you think drives Arthas to ignore everyone's advice? To ignore his mentor? To chase down Mal'ganis ON HIS OWN? That IS PRIDE! So you do understand then how WRONG The Culling is, and how it's a demonstration of Arthas' complete lack of empathy and compassion for the people he is supposed to be "saving..." Because...
HE LET HIS PRIDE GET IN THE WAY!
If the "kill counter" argument is silly, then understand that the label "Plague Infected House" and "Plagued Villager" is a perspective issue... That's what Arthas believes... but is it true?
No one else was there to confirm anymore.
@@DesignerDave Yeah thats what Im saying, his pride clouds his judgement and leads to his fall. But I think to say Arthas at this point was demonstrating a complete lack of empathy and compassion for his people is wrong. He believed mercy killing those people would spare them a worse fate.
Really the only clear options before them at that point were: try to contain the plague, or listen to a mysterious bird man and get on boats to attempt to move a literal kingdom full of people across the sea... and i guess just pray that none of them are carrying the plague...
When people say Arthas did nothing wrong in Stratholme, I disagree. But his actions do make sense. He is trying to contain the plague as best he can and spare his people the indignity/torment of becoming a demon's slaves in death. He is not going to try to tear everyone in Lordaeron from their homes and run, hes going to stay and try to save them. I think people see him less as a butcher and more as a surgeon amputating a limb. But that grim amputation, the culling, is an extremely traumatic event that makes him start to lose his mind and be more and more susceptible to ner'zhul's whispers, and about halfway through the northrend campaign is when he really starts to become obsessed with vengeance to the point that he forgets about saving his people.
He seemed to think that killing Mal'ganis may stop this from getting worse. Him wanting to kill the dreadlord makes sense since he was responsible for killing his people.
He could not bare to idly stand by as his people are turned into undead.
Of course that didn't pan out well at all but he could not know that in advance.
Wasn't there also a point made somewhere that burning the corpses would prevent them from being raised? (Not sure, might be a different universe)
His reaction is quite understandable regardless of it being good or evil.
2:00 Arthas is a paladin. If you are telling me a paladin who kill doomed civilian can't make their dead bodies stay dead... then how do paladin kill the undead ?
eddit: if you wanted to show arthas as evil: you shoudln't have made the citizen turn into zombi and attack artas, but instead make us kill them when they seems fine. And even then, they were still dommed. But at least doing it would feel wrong.
In the original Culling, the villagers did not turn into zombies unless Malganis converted them. This was "nerfed" because some people got "upset" about having to murder civilians. So we had them convert after a few seconds after you destroy a building... But that's a game mechanic and not the intent.
They're all human when you crack open the buildings... If you never touched the buildings, you don't know how many would stay human... maybe some were never sick at all...
@@DesignerDave so censorship, pretty much ruined it then?
but even so, since maganis is there: if we did nothing and followed uther and jaina ... he would have turned them anyway.
Everyone in the scene seems to agree that everyone have already consumed the grains.
Is arthas action bad? sure. But it was the best action to take because they had already lost when they got there. The only thing they have left was mitigating the chaos that would follow.
In the end: none of the character had a solution. Only's arthas action made it possible to avoid yet a whole city being used as a weapon against lordaeron and the entirerty of the eastern kingdom.
Even if you choose to spend precious ressources to confine the city, you would just make the innocent there die in a zombi apocalypse. Nothing changes. And even then, that would be only possible if malganis retreat. By why would he if arthas is retreating?
I understand that you wanted this moment to be THE moment where arthas turns ... but the situation was not good enouth for that.
*You would have to instead do something like:*
Getting there before the grain is distributed, and before malganis,
but know that you can't sustain that population alone, nor be able to move them before malganis arrives or something
and so Arthas decided to kill perfectly healthy and innocent civilians who are far from being doomed. Because they would be an impossible weight to carry during his fight against malganis or something.
"Ah! you wanted to use my people against me malganis? too bad, i got here 1st and there is nobody to turn now! I've made sure of it!"
Or something.
@@ereder1476 Even with the censorship, if you don't understand that mass murder is the turning point of Arthas' story, then you really need to re-examine your moral and ethical guidelines.
Imagine you're a villager in Stratholme, you're not feeling sick at all. Arthas burns down your house and murders your family. Did he do nothing wrong? Really ponder that...
@@DesignerDave But the villager doesn't have the knowledge about the plague. So of course they would be shocked. But we are not talking about "arthas = evil from the villager's perspective". Else everyone would agree. We are looking at it from the events, from a story perspective.
Arthas saved countless by not letting the outbreak happend.
Yes he murder them, but again: they were all doomed. They litteraly were all dead already. Because that's what the plague does, it's not some silent agent that only trigger when the person dies (in that case sure, you could just put them on a watchlist for when they die, meanwhile they can live normaly)
Before the culling we saw what the plague was and how unstoppable it is.
The caracteristic of the plague made it so that arthas has to take actions. Because again: there was no alternative.
It is indeed a dramatic event, a grimdark one. HE MURDURED ALL OF THEM ... that's malganis's win, he forced arthas to kill them before they turned. He forced a prince to kill thoses he had sworn to protect... Because he made it so that there was no other way. a checkmate. Just to piss Arthas off even more and insure he follow him to northrend to be later corrupt by frostmourn.
*IF THERE WAS AN ALTERNATIVE* then yea, arthas being evil because he was ruthless for no reason would be easely understood. But there wasn't. Mediv's idea is stupid and ignorant (maybe because he is too disconnected from mankind&co), Uther and jaina ? they are just coward who prefer doing nothing and let this city tear itself appart in a zombi apocalypse... and then create even more death by fighting/cleansing that whole city...
i mean really: what's the alternative?
@@DesignerDave tl;dr i understand your point. But it's trully the lack fo alternative that make what you wanted to convey not stick.
If there was, then everyone would be "wait hold on arthas wtf are you doing why don't you do that instead?! Jesus you fucked up!"
but the game doesn't show any alternative. Just blind doctrine from uther and cowardness from jaina while arthas do the hard choice after this defeat
I have a question about Uther and being lawfully good, while also knowing hardly anything about warcraft lore: Why did he not fight against Arthas to protect the innocent civilians of Stratholme? Did he not took an oath to protect the innocent? I know he resisted Arthas' orders, but he also didn't stop him. For me, it looks like he puts his alliegance to the crown above his oath as a paladin. Do I understand it correctly? If yes, are there paladins in the lore who did it the other way around, meaning fighting against their superiors to protect the innocent?
He did take an oath to protect the weak. In this case he is following orders because the alternative would be to kill Prince Arthas and then be executed when he returned to King Terenas. Instead he pleads with King Terenas to stop Arthas' rampage and convinces him to recall the expedition to Northrend.
There are certainly Paladins of every type in the lore, but Arthas sends all the Paladins away at the start of The Culling so they're not there to intervene. But bear in mind that in terms of people killing their own citizens to quell the Undead uprising. In this matter, Prince Arthas is the only commander to do so at the time of Warcraft III.
@@DesignerDave Interesting! I thought that maybe he could have stopped Arthas without killing him /taking him hostage, for example by rallying the forces around him who probably also weren't happy with committing genocide. And then accepting any kind of punishment from his king after rescuing the Stratholme survivors. But of course, such a course of action would have prevented the story you were trying to tell and probably would be more akin to a chaotic good character =)
@@legendofJupp Yep, definitely chaotic good and not lawful good at that point. Like it or not, a monarch's rule and those of his son, are effectively law. I wonder if Uther would later turn anti-monarchist had Arthas not killed him.
Hopefully he won't be Tirion and be deserving to be killed.
Dave, what would you have done instead?
Easy... Tell Uther and Jaina that we MIGHT be too late, but if we're going to save the city, we will have to separate the sick from the rest as quickly as we can. We lock everyone who's green or coughing in the zoo, and we defend the rest in our encampment. With Uther, Jaina, and Arthas combined we easily defeat Mal'ganis. Stratholme saved, the Lich King's plot to turn Arthas evil is foiled, and we quickly send runners or mages to every city to warn about the plagued grain. While the Scourge is reeling from their losses at Stratholme and with their grain plauge foiled, I rush to Dalaran and secure the pledge of the Mages to work together with the Alliance against greater threats, utilizing the potential threat of the Scourge taking Stratholme (now defeated) to motivate them. Then the same with the Elves and the Dwarves. Before the Legion has even arrived, a united Lordaeron stands against them...
But that's not the story of Arthas... the rash Prince who fell to evil.
@@politicsandart7994 Again, it doesn't matter. The point is WHEN Arthas made the decision and WHAT information he had at that moment. He literally sees a few sick villagers and some boxes of plagued grain at the ENTRANCE to Stratholme and LEAPS to the decision of mass murdering the entire city. And then people act like Uther and Jaina were bad for NOT agreeing with him? Like... just get over it, Arthas was wrong, you guys are wrong and no amount of retconned history about the plague or information that Arthas didn't have at the time he made the choice can change that.
@@politicsandart7994 Hahahahahaaha... No, I am explaining exactly what the story of that campaign mission was as I am the creator of the mission. And everyone is SO happy when I do this for things they agree with me on, but the moment I disagree they turn into a bunch of angry bitter little trolls who can't handle a simple fact check... from the creator of the mission they claim to have more knowledge about than me...
You just can't accept that you're wrong. That's the problem, and it has nothing to do with me other than I'm the one pointing it out. Good luck in life.
@Politics and Art Chronicle 3 says there was nothing making plagued grain stand-out and Arthas did nothing to impede the Scourge.
I disagree on your "corpses become abominations" thing. They don't "become" abominations, they are made abominations. With great difficulty and resources as I understand. And to raise the dead as skeletons you also need necromancers and a lot of energy. That was the beauty of the plague, it did everything itself. Also Arthas did burn the city in the game thus denying necromancers materials needed.
He did not burn the city. The survivors burned the bodies. That's made very clear in the next scene. Aboms and Necromancers taking more time is irrelevant. The point is that slaughtering the people stops nothing.
@@DesignerDave Later lore that talks about Stratholme assumes that Arthas' army torched the city when culling. There's official art of Arthas standing filled with remorse in a burning Stratholme.
I understood that Arthas was killing these people and by doing so diminishing the undead forces. The whole playing experience of wc3 teaches you that although technically the undead can raise corpses, they are an army that can be killed by conventional means. You kill their army, destroy their buildings - and they die. So here, by Arthas killing these people, I understood he was indeed stopping the people of Stratholme from directly bolstering the ranks of the undead.
In this line of thought - I understood Jaina and Uther's objection just from the moral dillema if it's ok to murder people just because they will turn into zombies soon. They thought it was still murder, and Arthas was more cold and pragmatic about it and less emotional. He did what needed to be done. Although this definitely showed that Arthas was pretty callous and willing to go to moral extremes to fight the undead, I didn't really see eye to eye with Uther about the "terrible threshold".
In my play experience Arthas really lost himself in a gradual process during the Muradin story arc. From wanting to burn the boats, to betraying and murdering the mercenaries who helped him, and finally losing it completely by sacrificing Muradin to get Frostmourne.
So although from a writer's prerspective, you may have meant to have arthas killing the people at stratholme just be a pointless petty race vs malganis, that is not what I and apparently many other players understood. Like many people already wrote here, I think the fact that this turning point was seen as morally ambiguous and not black and white - made the story and Arthas as a character much more compelling and memorable.
(btw - only played wc3, no WOW)
As a side note kudos to your dedication on responding to the comment section.
You could argue that Arthas would be reducing the army of Mal'ganis, but by ignoring when and how Arthas makes the decision you're missing the point of the story and his character arc.
Arthas is rash and impetuous and leaps into action without thinking numerous times before this. He's also been admonished by Uther for being bloodthirsty for "vengeance" against Mal'ganis. The Culling is the culmination of that arc turning Arthas to evil.
At the point that Arthas decides to mass murder an entire city, he has not even looked inside its walls to see what's going on. For all we know, the only people sick are those at the entrance that he sees. But immediately he leaps to the conclusion that everyone must die... Even though we know that many people may not have eaten any grain at all at this point (and this is confirmed in the interlude of the aftermath).
The idea that Arthas "did what needed to be done" is actually even more ridiculous, because killing all the people in Stratholme did nothing but further the destruction of Lordaeron. Dead bodies turn into undead, everyone knows this... and he risked his entire army being fed to the undead if he failed... doubling that risk when he sent Uther and his paladins away after accusing him of treason.
There's absolutely no justification for what Arthas did at Stratholme, and all the people talking about "but they would be eternally tormented" or "he burned the bodies so it's okay" sound like lunatics to me. -_-
Everyone I've proposed this to has shut up so far so I'll use it again...
You live in Stratholme, you're gluten intolerant and haven't touched any grain, nor has any of your family. When Arthas kicks the door in, do you stoop down to lick his boot before he murders you?
Everyone's gung-ho on mass murder when they're Prince Arthas... perhaps a little less so when they're peasant number 80 in his kill crazy rampage to beat Mal'ganis.
@@DesignerDave I hear what you are saying about not everyone neccessarily being infected, but that poses a bigger question towards uther and jaina for not stopping him. If they thought he was just brutally hastening something inevitable, I can understand how they would rather leave and not watch. But if you are saying that there is a chance there are people who aren't infected in the city, it's crazy that they didn't try harder to save those people and just left so arthas could murder them.
@@cheshire9646
They didn't "just leave."
You're ignoring a VERY critical moment in the intro cinematic where Arthas accuses Uther of treason and then literally disbands the Paladins from service. Does that sound like someone thinking rationally? "Hey, I'm about to face a huge undead threat, let's send the Paladins home..."
Uther is Lawful Good, not Chaotic Good. He refused a director order from his Prince, which is one thing, but after Arthas sent him home... what was the alternative? Kill Arthas? Knock him out and drag him home? How many soldiers would be lost in that battle, right outside the city Mal'ganis supposedly occupies... Which would then be fodder for more undead...
Uther understood that fighting with Arthas then and there would have been a death sentence for every one of his men. Jaina alone could do nothing for the situation, so she chose to leave, hoping Arthas would come to his senses if he saw she was seriously against this action too... But alas, he did not care.
And no, I'm not saying there's a "chance" there were uninfected. There were 100% uninfected people in there, and we show them in the following interlude. But just the very idea that "everyone inside MUST be infected" is a demonstration of how Arthas was not thinking rationally. In any given situation there are not just two options, there are many possibilities. Some people might just not eat any grain... Gluten allergies are a thing. One can assume there were citizens who ate only meat... Among a myriad of other reasons that the plague would not have infected everyone. And remember... in War3, zombies don't spread plague. No one is ever bitten by a zombie and converted and there are no mechanics by which someone is converted to a zombie unless they've eaten plagued grain.
@@DesignerDave I guess I mostly accept what you are saying, but I still think that the fact that such a large amount of the playerbase (even just based on the comment section here) initially understood that the moral choice in this situation was not so clear cut, - indicates that from the player experience, that is how the story is often seen. So whether or not that is what you intended, I think the fact that many people initially understood it like that is pretty indisputable. much like if half of a class fails a test - the teacher can blame the students all they want, but ultimately a large part of the responsibility lies on the teacher.
the bottom line of what I'm trying to say is that even if you can explain how the plague was not a sure thing and bring different evidence to prove your point, I don't think that is clear from the player experience. I think players who understood it that way are not wrong, even if that is not what you the designer intended, but rather that the play experience is not so clear on that point.
As a side note like I have already said, I think this possible understanding of this situation being morally multi-faceted, makes Arthas more interesting and sympathetic as character. So even while you may not have intended people to understand it this way, I think it is a "happy accident" or a "bug turned feature"
@@cheshire9646 Do not be confused by a VERY vocal group who is NOT the majority. When I put it to votes of random people who play the game, that is definitely not the case.
From the "player experience" they are playing AS Arthas, and here's a trick about the psychology of humans that you many not know. We are VERY bad at understanding why we make choices before we make them, but we are VERY good at JUSTIFYING decisions we've already made. Thus, there's a large contingent of players who felt complicit in Arthas' actions... because they had to kill the villagers, and then worked backward to find ways to justify those actions.
Just like... a certain group did during WW2... I'm not calling anyone anything... I'm just saying... It's the same underlying psychological principle. ;)
Arthas basically did everything as Ner'Zhul planned, the culling drove him nuts
Well, even if there was no culling. I always found the killing of his mercenaries and the burning of the ships in Nothrend a bit disturbing.
Also the Muradin's death event is, for me, the clearest sign that there has always been something wrong with him. In the end, it's pretty clear that he chosed his destiny.
(Apologies for my bad english)
I mean, exactly. He hadn't touched the sword yet but he wasn't even phased by Muradin's death (and they were old friends)... So I don't know what these "ADNW" people are all about other than regurgitating something stupid someone said who clearly hasn't played War III in a long time. ;)
@@DesignerDave The Rise of the Lich King novel changed it so that Arthas actually tried to heal Muradin when a shard of Frostmourne's ice seal struck him down. But didn't since the Light wouldn't show itself anymore.
"Arthatas commited mass genocide, they were already dead, why kill them?" that's the argument I hear dave is saying but they werent already dead they were not going to just die they were in for a more horrific end - to become trapped as undead for all eternity, to never know peace. If I was becoming an undead I'd rather someone kill me and put my soul to rest I wouldnt want to become undead and serve some lord for all eternity that's horrifying
At the time Arthas made the decision to genocide an entire city, he didn't know how many were plagued and he definitely didn't know about any tormented undead eternity.
Let's say you were inside Stratholme and had a gluten allergy, thus you never ingested any grain. When Arthas busts in your door to behead you, would you stoop down to thank him as you licked his boot?
Stop self-inserting
Wow... I played WC3 since I was a child and it always seemed that killing the citizens was a logical step so that Mal'Ganis doesn't win.
But I have never thought of the dead bodies and how it actually benefits the Scourge even though it is quite obvious and everybody said it like thousand times.
Just... wow... It was a no win situation all the time.
What dead bodies? Arthas burns them at the end of the mission ¬¬
@RagnarTheRed Just fanfiction.
Yeah the best choice would have been to listen to Medivh but it's pretty hard to know if that guy is telling the truth about another continent or not just a total mad man. From the book perspective of Arthas downfall, he made the right decision because Stratholme was too big to let the scourge build an army out of it. And even in the game, corpse get burned after it, making the scourge unable to use them. Also it was clearly stated that people can turn at any moment into an undead and still in the book, Arthas suffered alot of each blow he gave to the civilian.
Was that a retcon from the book ? Do you know the point of view of Metzen at this time ? (if I remember it, he was the lead writter too back then) Even if I guess you work with him durring that mission and share the same opinion on it.
Yeah, Metzen indicated that The Culling was the first step into evil on the journey to becoming a Death Knight and everything in the story to this point indicates why Arthas crosses a "terrible threshold" here.
Arthas' decisions were impetuous, short-sighted, and extremely dangerous. Based on previous missions, those are his traits that always get him into trouble and it plays out here too. Without Uther and his Paladins, the likely outcome of a major undead conflict was for Arthas to be overrun and turned into undead right there... thus bolstering the undead forces (ala the Hillsbrad mission where he just barely holds on). The only reason that wasn't the case was because the Undead's mission in Stratholme was to corrupt Arthas, not take the city. So the most likely outcome based on Arthas' past experiences would be for his army to be slain and thus there would have been no burning of bodies.
In the original version of The Culling, the villagers also did not turn into zombies unless Malganis did it. Thus making it more ambiguous if you were killing plagued villagers or unplagued villagers... in effect showing that Arthas was killing indiscriminately. There were also sounds for villagers pleading for their lives and weeping as Arthas invaded their homes. All of that was nerfed because it was deemed "too harsh" and people wanted a way to not be evil...
Thus the zombie timers were put in, and you can wait until they turn to kill them. Thus, people who only killed zombified citizens can truthfully say that "their" Arthas did not fully turn evil just yet in their storyline. ;)
@@DesignerDave wow ! Thanks for the answer.
I always seen stratholme as a no win-win moment and just only multiple level of bad ending. Especialy that I've played that game durring WotLK/and with the book to get more info.
So I guess the Arthas of W3 was more of a spoiled selfish brat with some good intent ? Who turned even more crazy later by the sword.
And the WoW/book retcon make him more of a good hearted character who failed everything he wanted to achieve with some trauma behind it. Ending up by refusing to leave Stratholme and Lordaeron because this time he didn't want to lose something he loved again.
It feels wierd because the original is way more "dark" finally, but still amazing.
Thanks for the answer, and thanks for your work on W3 ! It was such an amazing game, W3 helped me to love WoW and it made me fan of "medieval" (if we can really call that medieval!) fantasy universe.
@@jean-onchenorsh8942 Hehe, it's a "high fantasy" universe, but the human missions definitely come across as medieval. The main difference is they have magical healing and so forth. So no one should die of bubonic plague or anything like that. Healing magic does for a high fantasy setting what penicillin effectively did in the real world times 100. ;)
As I haven't read the books I can't really comment. I can only describe the intent and decision-making for War III back in the day when we were making it.
Happy to answer your questions, that's why I made this channel. ;)
@@DesignerDave Thanks for all those answer ! Even if Arthas was pure evil back in that days, hell it was still better writted that we got now with the franchise... Time for me to watch all of your other video now ! You make me want to go back on this amazing game once more, sad that reforged was eh... an error ? Have a good day and get a new subscriber ! :D
@@jean-onchenorsh8942 Arthas want purely evil until closer to Frostmorne. The Culling was a major step in that direction. ;)
Really just your standard entitled monarch.
I wish to refute your argument, because I think there are a few key important things that deserve to be addressed
First you mentioned that Abominations are created through corpses, so at the end of the day what Arthas did was pointless.
That is wrong, because we even see a cutscene of what happens to the city. The entire city is in flames with piles of corpses being thrown in piles to burn.
So no the corpses cannot be used to create abominations, unless ashes and skeletal remains that have not burned are enough, which I doubt.
Not only that, but also even they could not burn or use the ashes/skeletal remains for some reason, the Soldiers of Lorderon could easily quarantine the burning city. The cult of the damned works in secret and cannot brute force this. The scourge has a strong hold over Lorderon AFTER Arthas destroyed it from the inside.
Second point is that it was immoral to do so. I would argue that is also wrong. Arthas did what any rational king would. Sacrificing a city to save a kingdom. He could be sent on trial for war crimes later if needed, but this is something any rational being would do
Third. Other writers have confirmed that Arthas mental state broke after Jaina betrayed him. He lost faith in himself and the light started abandoning him for it. He had to shoulder the burden all on his own and that will break anyone.
Fourth. He had no reason to trust a shady cloaked powerful mage for very good reason. It would be extremely naïve and irrational to take the word of a random sorcerer you just met.
In conclusion everything Arthas did up to this point was pragmatic and rational. In truth he was the one who was betrayed and driven on the edge by his so called friends. Unless you can disprove all of those points, I stand by Arthas and all he does up until he burns the ships, which could also have a very strong argument for defense
1. The corpses were being burned by who? Arthas had already left. He didn't give a shit... It was the leftover townsfolk Arthas didn't get around to murdering because he was too busy chasing Malganis.
2. They were only ALLOWED to burn the bodies because taking Stratholme was NOT the goal of the undead. If they had wanted they could have completely overwhelmed Arthas and crushed his entire force and converted it to undead... But that was not their goal. Their goal was to corrupt Arthas. Mission accomplished. So using "burned bodies" as a defense after the fact makes no sense.
3. Arthas mental state being broken after Jaina "betrayed him?" She left AFTER he made the decision to MASS MURDER EVERYONE IN STRATHOLME! His step towards EVIL was deliberate and his own choice.
4. It would be irrational to take the word of a random sorcerer... except that Jaina said maybe they should listen to him... and maybe you should reconsider what he was saying before you MASS MURDER THE POPULATION OF STRATHOLME!
In conclusion, I've disproven all your points and you're wrong, Arthas was absolutely NOT being pragmatic and NOT being rational. He betrayed all of his teachings, his mentors, his friends, and his family...
The only logical and rational move was to retreat and find another methodology to fight the undead that did not risk your entire army being turned into undead monsters... and certainly any RATIONAL person would have to rethink their options when they're about to commit MASS MURDER!!!!!!!
1. You make a really good point. We do not see soldiers burning the dead, but actual civilians. That means that Arthas in his thirst for vengeance actually did all of that slaughter for nothing and was irresponsible. He should have finished the job and burned everything to the ground. Also following him to Northrend was equally stupid and irresponsible.
2. Regarding this point, there was no way Arthas would know that. We as readers of course would know that if the scourge wanted to they would easily take over that, but Arthas at that point in time could not know this.
3. There was nothing that he could do different other than let the city turn in to undead, but at least he can say he kept his hands clean, but if that same army was sent in to slaughter countless innocents, he would never forgive himself for not stopping it when there was still time (from his point of view)
4. Still makes no sense to trust a complete stranger. It only made sense for Thrall and Stormrage, because of their connection to spirits and spirituality. Jaina also had no reason to trust him what so ever. Power level should not ooze trust in general given the events of WC1 and WC2
Yes you did prove me wrong that he was irrational AFTER he burned the city, because he should have burned everything to the ground himself and then return to his father and submit himself to judgement. I have no idea how his father would respond though.
@@joroa7151 "4. Still makes no sense to trust a complete stranger. It only made sense for Thrall and Stormrage, because of their connection to spirits and spirituality. Jaina also had no reason to trust him what so ever. Power level should not ooze trust in general given the events of WC1 and WC2"
There was nothing stopping Medivh from approaching High Elves and Paladins either.
not fricking once have I concluded that the people become part of the undead forces anyway
Covid : exsists
Arthas : this entire city must be purged
Oh, I didn't know Covid resulted in dead 100% of the time and those who died come back as relentless killing machines. Sorry, mb. /s
The citizens of Stratholme will turn into undead fast not slow if they were left alive if I remember. If you leave them alive they will turn in short time and this will give the impression that the right thing to do is killing them! add the influence of the lich king(previously) or The Jailer(New canon) Arthas almost had no control over his emotions and importantly over his thoughts.
We don't talk about the Jailor here.
@@DesignerDave I wish that you and the original devs stayed and worked on WC4 instead of what we got now. You all did an amazing work.
I will support Frost Giant and I hope the glorious days of great storytelling come back.
Thank you all.
"applying wow lore to wc3 seriously"
The main problem in this discussion is that designer represents the perspective of god and other side represent perspective of Arthas in real time with no information or confirmation of info that god has. And thats it without details.
Decision Arthas made is wrong and its designed to be wrong. The whole story of that is to push Arthas more and more into darkness.
-Lich King picked him and Malganis was luring him into trap after trap, Arthas DIDNT KNOW about traps, in real time there is very little he could do differently because of the story situation. Arthas is picked from beggining to be doomed, no matter what.
- In Stratholme, you cant save any citizen, everyone, who come from buildings are already infected, so mass murdering ( which is bad from the core ofc) the entire city for Arthas in real time has purpose in slowing the scourge and putting down the army that could rise from infected people. The God know this will be not effective and wrong, etc., because he has information that Arthas in real time dont have.
- Jaina and Uther walk away from situation without any big discussion or debate, the scene cover like 1 min when they are talking about purging the city. no explanations to each one, for the design purpose of dooming Arthas, because he is doomed from begin. Arthas earlier was defending Hearthglen against two large armies of undead with liches in command and wagons infecting another villages and making third army if u not stop them ( if u breakdown the mission 5 ). He's in schock, and making decision of startholme is highly more problematic for him.
Anyways, the designer perspective will be fighting with player perspective, from the problem of information difference.
I do not want to reedem Arthas, but in my opinion, stating that he was pure evil is just ridicolous, even designing him into going to doom after doom couldnt made him full evil in players eyes.
I understand the confusion, but there are clues throughout the writing that Arthas is on a dark path. Uther warns him several times early on about being vengeful... The Culling absolutely is the turning point from reason to psychopathic mass murderer. I'm honestly struggling to understand how people didn't see it and it has nothing to do with the designer perspective...
I think it's laid out pretty clearly in terms of:
1. You're mirroring the Dreadlord's actions, but are actually being even more brutal than him. You're literally playing a game of slaughter the civilians and you have to win...
2. Everyone being disgusted with Arthas' decision to murder the populace.
3. The end result being Arthas chasing Malganis in a rage of vengeful hate to Northrend. Even if you were along for Arthas' viewpoint to the end of The Culling... The aftermath should demonstrate how pointless it was. Who did he really save? Was the plague stopped because of his actions? The answer is no one and no.
@@DesignerDave Good points, clues were clear enough throughout the campaign, every decision arthas making at culling and after is at least questionable from player point, not saying immoral of evil, there is no denying from me that it is the dark path to doom.
The problem is still in perspective of situation
1.player vs designer perspective is clear, when we break down the mission, etc., we can argue in details, morals, ethics. In general we agree with each other.
2. How we treat war? We have to pay attention what happens, because from mission 3 to 6 story is very dynamic. Arthas and Jaina see the horrible actions kelthuzad did in 3rd and 4th mission. In Hearthglen, Arthas had to battle against 2 large undead armies commanded by liches and stop the wagons spreading the infection in villages around, so lets say anothe 0.5 of army to deal with. In these 3 missions we see full war actions from scourge. Uther with jaina came to rescue at finish of mission 5.
The lack of communication and information between heroes were critical due to decision of the Culling. Arthas is more willing to make to say lightly pragmatic decision than moral Uther, which wasnt on previous missions, he didnt saw what Arthas expierienced earlier. Blaming in this situation only Arthas is for me ignorant due to communication breakdown between heroes.
3. Part of community is outraged by last cinematic of shadowlands and they making a standpoint about Arthas from whole warcraft 3 + WoW perspective.
On Warcraft III basis, its pretty clear that what we see in Human Campaign is like designerDave stated, no argue about that. In my opinion story of WoW is going down rapidly since BfA, and treating Arthas like this in cinematic is disgusting for me in comparison to Sylvanas, which did imo more horrible things willingly and she get away with that. Storyteller forgot that Arthas died when he picked up Frostmourne, the rest was Nerzhul.
Sorry for this non consistent garbage to read, im still having fun playing Warcraft III, Thank you Mr. Dave for time and wonderful game, which had and still has pretty good impact on my life. Cheers.
@@pryca4047 Arthas doesn't have a reliable characterization.
dude this is medieval fantasy, what do you think that we did as human back then? what he did is indeed cruel, but it was the only choice that he can think of at that moment.
what should he do at that moment? help them? cure them? trap them in the city to rot away? not only it was crueler they have demon to kill too,
Leave... That's what he should have done... :D
@@DesignerDave he is a goddamned prince a city is plagued with zombie making plague, he is obligated to at least try to stop it before it spread.
"if you kill your subjects without actually defeating the enemy you're the real victor"
It's like, the fantasy equivalent of using a nuke to destroy a city that's infested with zombies. Sure, some uninfected people are going to die and that sucks, but if you don't stop the zombies they are only going to become a much bigger problem. Stratholme is not a small town, it's a major population center, one of the largest in the Eastern Kingdoms. It falling to the undead would not only have spelled the death of Lordaeron, but possibly the world as a whole.
Uther and Jaina allowed moral idealism to blind them to what needed to be done, and the way I see it, their refusal to understand Arthas' pragmatic reasoning only hastened his descent into becoming the Lich King. He saved the world by culling Stratholme and the world rejected him for it. He prolonged Lordaeron's survival by weeks, possibly.
Arthas gathering whatever uninfected people were still within the city and fleeing is literally running away from your problems rather than dealing with them head on. The undead would have caught up with him eventually, and grown in power during the time he and the survivors spent running.
The current devs would say he did wrong then again they had Sylvanas pretty much get away with torching all the moon elves in that tree.
Hmm didn't know zombies turned into ghouls. Always thought they were 2 different types of undead.
It's a bit of hidden lore and isn't expressed in gameplay anywhere.
It was in the official site lore.
I imagine most people are just "memeing" when they say that he did nothing wrong, but it's truly hilarious that SOME people try to justify his maniacal slaughter :O
they were already dead. they ate the grain, and malganis was there. How is that a slaughter? they even turn on you and attack you on the mission
@Ereder There is no word in WC3 alone that Arthas only killed Zombies.
I've always read the Arthas-Uther arguments as shortened for pacing, and I guess I was more charitable to interprate "this entire city must be purged" as a more family friendly version. Can that sentence mean "just kill the plagued peasants but not unplagued ones"? Probably I think, especially there are no unplagued citizen in the gameplay section.
If the debate is interpreted as
Arthas: Let's kill plagued citizens before they turn
vs
Uther: The most I do is kill zombies
it would be more open as a both sides debate.
But I get your point though.
It's not shortened for pacing. It's a moment that is built up to throughout the campaign where Arthas makes rash decisions as Uther admonishes him. Here it reaches its peak, wherein Arthas isn't willing to consider anything other than the rash decision he just made. It's a well-told story, which is why it's good. The ambiguity people lay over the story here is head-canon stuff that isn't in the story. All you have to do is consider things from the viewpoint of a villager in Stratholme and imagine what that experience was like and it should be immediately apparent why Arthas was wrong, and seeking ANY alternative before acting was correct. Had Arthas simply stopped and thought about it, and gave Uther a chance to make a case for quarantine and clearing out the infected grain while Jaina takes a plagued villager to Dalaran for research or whatever else. In that scenario, he keeps his allies, he's more likely to defeat Malganis, he saves whoever isn't infected in Stratholme, and they still get rid of all the zombies and are potentially closer to a cure.
But that's not Arthas. Everything foreshadows his rash decision at the gates of Stratholme, the whole human campaign is the story of his downfall towards evil and becoming The Lich King. The Culling doesn't make sense if it's not a step forward towards evil, which it 100% is.
Arthas was right he did a horrible but hes the right thing ,what was he supposed to do?? escape ??, soo all human become zombies and this new horde of zombies would attack other villages,making more victims, and what are you saying that killing and burning the civilian dosent help, it really helps you have less zombies to deal around, if jaina and uther had helped him there would have been fewer casualties and maybe arthas wouldn't have been corupted by having his friends back him up in this difficult time , that mal'ganis would have escaped the same does not change, what matters was to stop the infection, if you wanted to do a mission where it was purely evil you should have done that there was a cure or something, but arthas to be on the safe side decided the extermination of civilians this was an evil deed ,instead the mission like you did it , with the few things they knew there wasn't much to do, just run away and let those poor people turn into zombies or kill them before they become zombie they equally bad action but the safest was to kill them
Not all of them were zombies or would become zombies. Only people who ate the grain turn into zombies. Arthas' time would have been much better spent going to other cities to stop the further spread of the grain or re-uniting the disparate factions of the Alliance who later fall one by one to undead Arthas.
There is no justification for the mass murder of Stratholme, especially given he makes the choice while at the entrance seeing only a few sick villagers and boxes of grain. He had no idea what was going on inside. That's the whole point of Arthas' character flaw... Rashness... Never stopping to think things through. We hit that storybeat so many times we were worried it'd be a dead horse by The Culling.
If there was a cure it would be too obvious that Arthas is completely evil here. Subtlety in writing must be a lost art at this point, but we wanted BELIEVABLE characters, and while Arthas' actions at Stratholme are BELIEVABLE, they're still WRONG AND EVIL!
OP defends the Genophage.
@@DesignerDave so what happens after arthus leaves? everybody in stratholme gets ripped apart by zombies and an even larger horde can spread out and pillage. I know I'd rather be mercy killed then eaten alive by my neighbors...
@@sicksock435446 Some escape... New heroes have an opportunity to rise to the occasion. Mal'ganis has a small zombie army that will eventually turn into ghouls over the period of a few weeks. But Ner'zhul doesn't get Arthas. King Terenas is still alive. He recognizes the threat at some point and rallies and reunites the Alliance. The Undead are defeated, the demonic invasion likely fails.
@@DesignerDave Stratholm is the second largest city in the kingdom. With its entire population turned into ghouls Mal'ganis could probably just march on the capital and win in the field. Then he has two giant ghoul armies...
just question about more related to kel'thuzad in world of warcraft they gave him backstory of being highest rank mage from Dalaran before he became necromancer.
but in warcraft 3 there is no interaction or recognition between him and Antonidas/Jaina.
did you guys intended to give kel'thuzad backstory in warcraft 3?
Easy answer there.
Kel'thuzad was only one of the Kirin Tor, not the leader. Jaina was only a girl when he was exiled, so even if she had any significant contact with him when he was still in Dalaran, she didn't recognise him for several reasons:
Her memory of him would have faded over time. He looked vastly different to the immaculately dressed mage of the Kirin Tor, he's now an emaciated old man dressed in filthy, tattered robes. And his face is obscured by his skull helm.
@@FlinnGaidin
she was present when he was exiled in kel'thuzad short story and he even says his name to Arthas and Jaina.
and there is also lack interaction between him and Antonidas (who exiled him) during undead campaign siege on dalaran.
@@undead4500 well, the rest of his history was written after the game, so I guess they didn't remember or keep logs of their prior lore history (think Draenei/Eredar)...
As to why Antonidas didn't react to him...he's a lich...not one part of him looks like he did when he was among the living, and I don't recall him saying "Hello, remember me? It's your old pal Kel'thuzad!" to Antonidas 😜
Yah... I just don't bother with anything after WoW Classic. It's just too frustrating because it's written by lots of different people who just don't understand the implications to past lore but are eager to use nostalgia to bolster the impact of their writing.
It's fanfic to me. No offense to them, I'm sure they're trying their best.
@@undead4500 The short story retconned it so that Ner'zhul forced Kel'thuzad into joining him rather than the two meeting and Kel'thuzad being impressed with his liege's magic so joining. And that's without bringing in the Jailer.
The man himself just can't be wrong!
The point of no return for Arthas is when he burns the ships and betrays the mercenaries. At least that is my interpretation. The best part of stories is that they can be equivocal and kindling for discussion. It is quite disappointing to hear the guy who helped craft such a great story stick his nose up at people who still love and talk about it decades later. It would be great if you said you did not agree with that interpretation and have his own perspective, but the furvor with which you go after people who genuinely care about this world and its story is disappointing to say the least. I am not even someone who says Arthas did nothing wrong, but I would not call someone who says that a psychopath. My main issue is this particular invective, but I am hopeful that this is mere hyperbole in response to hyperbole. Your perspective as author is obviously important and I appreciate the insights you offer here, even if I disagree with the way you went about stating your position.
So murdering the entire population of a city based on seeing a few sick people and a box of grain at the entrance is NOT the point of no return? Really?
Fascinating...
The reason I called people who think "Arthas did nothing wrong" at The Culling, Psychopaths... Is because they have repeatedly proven they are psychopaths... Many of them literally took a psychopathy test and scored VERY HIGH above the norm.
There's hyperbole and then there's people demonstrating traits of a psychopath and me calling it out.
I'm just calling it like I see it.
And the way I stated my position originally was very much just a list that proves my points based on the story elements we created for the game. But BOY OH BOY, that really riled up the psychopaths and I've been dealing with it ever since...
Every time I think it's done, a new batch of psychopaths shows up to stan for Arthas MASS MURDERING AN ENTIRE CITY... It's crazy... LITERALLY... :D
@@DesignerDave It was not based on seeing a few sick people and a box of grain. Arthas witnessed the turning of people in Hearthglen and knew the infected grain which had caused it had already been distributed in Stratholme. War is about making hard decisions with limited information. Based on the concrete facts Arthas had, it is not unreasonable to attack the city. Nor is it unreasonable for Jaina and Uther to turn their backs on Arthas for doing so. Part of the problem is the neglected fantasy element. This is unlike any disease or situation you, I, or even Arthas has before delt with. These people will become an army of the undead and pillage the hinterlands of Stratholme. Should Arthas have just let that happen? Maybe. But that would certainly be a horrible choice as well.
The game demonstrates that Arthas' horrible choice was not entirely wrong. If you fail to halt Malganis, he wins and has a fresh army of undead fortifying a new position within Lordaeran. Instead, the city is destroyed and people are able to return to the wreckage and burn the bodies. A gruesome outcome, but perhaps better than the alternative.
On the other hand, he undoubtedly caused the deaths of innocents and turned his allies against him. If he had simply allowed the city to fall and demonstrated what he already knew to the paladins, it could have united them together as a cohesive front against the cult. A gruesome outcome, but perhaps better than the alternative.
I am not being dismissive of either side because this story is one of my favorites for this very reason. I do not think this is a point of no return, because the decision is not made lightly. Arthas takes no joy in it and would rather not do it, but he commits to what is the best option before him by his reason. However, his refusal to accept the consequences of his actions are the point when it becomes unacceptable. You do not get to do something so drastic then run off without explaining yourself and submitting to proper judgment. This choice was another step down a dark path, but the denial of repercussions pushes him fully into villain status.
The same way you call someone a psychopath, someone could call you a name for your conclusive denunciation. I do not want to call you any name. Your game is fantastic and your perspective is much appreciated. There is no doubt you put a lot of thought into all of this. My only issue is the name calling, which I think is unwarranted and misguided. It is more likely to cause people to dig into their positions. Making things divisive and personal.
I know this is a ridiculous length for a RUclips comment and do not expect you to fully read all of it. I will end off by genuinely thanking you for all you have done and at least considering my perspective, even if it is evil or misguided. Have a great day!
@@TheLeadhound I appreciate your thoughts here, which are far more nuanced than the dozens of Arthas-stans who come at me weekly claiming "Arthas did nothing wrong." Which is exactly what I'm fighting against.
Arthas was taking his steps onto the path of evil here, and by the end of the mission he was sufficiently numbed to murder that instead of staying to burn the corpses (which he definitely does not do in The Culling) he rushes off to Northrend to chase Mal'ganis and his "vengeance." That's the point of The Culling... That is the stepping stone from the path of the righteous to that of an evil tyrant...
Any argument that begins with "it was okay to murder all those people" is patently false because of the most important aspect of acknowledging someone else's humanity... Arthas took away the agency of everyone in Stratholme that day. Sick or not, potentially willing conscripts who didn't eat any grain, women and children... He killed them all, and it's unfortunate that I had to nerf the original version of The Culling to add in the automatic turning into zombies once Arthas smashes in a house, because it adds a layer of confusion that detracts from the main point.
Arthas couldn't know that everyone he was murdering that day was actually going to become a zombie, so he dehumanized them in his mind to make it easier to do... Hence the name... The Culling.
Culling: "the action of sending an inferior or surplus farm animal to be slaughtered."
@@DesignerDave Your perspective is also very much appreciated by me. I do ultimately agree that saying "Arthas did nothing wrong" as a none hyperbolic statement is patently false. He is a villain. The only question is when does he completely cross the line. I must say I am ultimately glad there was this controversy as I had not heard of your channel until it was mentioned recently due to this. I look forward to watching your videos to get greater insight into your design work on games as I aspire to develop my own games some day. Thank you for your hard work and taking to time to read and respond to my comments. It is nice to have a respectful exchange over the Internet from time to time. Keep up the good work!
So Arthas did everything wrong?
I mean, initially he was okay, but once he got to Stratholme he was completely off the rails. :D
@@DesignerDave, and who must we thank for that "turn"?
He still did swell banter.
I'm going to barge right in here months after my first comment, and after we interacted in a community post, to say I've changed my mind on this. At least if we look at it from the perspective of Warcraft 3 alone - until Arthas goes into the city, he couldn't know if the populace was infected, those four by the entrance may have been the exception, and like you say a few comments below, people presumably from around Stratholme are burning the fallen days after Arthas culled the city, so he couldn't have burnt the bodies.
With the expanded story depicted in the Rise of the Lich King novel I think Arthas is a lot more justified in culling the city, but no less wrong for doing so. In the book he has had a lot more exposure to the plague of undeath, he knows how it works, he can tell much more of the city is infected because the plague's sickly wet stench is coming from the city after the plagued grain had been baked into bread, there are undead in the streets _and_ Arthas and his men burn the bodies and set the city on fire. But there are still more healthy people who are simply cut down by Arthas and his soldiers, they even start fighting back after a while, not that it did them any good.
But the most damning change in the novel is that it isn't a race between Arthas and Mal'ganis over who could kill or claim the most zombies, Mal'ganis is more just there to oversee the city's infection and ultimately lure Arthas to Northrend. So Arthas had a lot more time on his hands.
That's a bad take.
No it isn't, it's the authorial intent of the game explained beat by beat. Deal with it.
@@DesignerDave It's a bad take and you're irrelevant. Deal with it.
@@DesignerDave then you failed
@Deltoren1 Arthas isn't the meow meow you pretend he is.
I always wondered. Was Frostmourne inspired by Elric's stormbringer?
I think that part of Arthas' reasoning for The Culling can be boiled down to helplessness. Which leads him to panic, which leads him to a flight-or-fight response, which leads him to act on pure instinct. "Plagued grain makes zombies. We can't tell who ate the plagued grain. Damnit. We have to purge the city to prevent the plague from spreading to the rest of Lordaeron." I don't think he was thinking of the larger consequences, he was acting on pure adrenaline in a panic. In that mental state with the horror of what was about to happen setting in, I'm not sure many people would have the sense to think of, or remember, the abomination side of things. For him it may have just come down to "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few," in isolation with what he was seeing right in front of him. When people panic and the adrenaline kicks in, we all do dumb things because we can't think clearly. That's the funny thing about adrenaline, it makes you focus in on the bear that's right in front of your face and trying to eat you, and everything else gets ignored. It's a great moment of the writers understanding psychology. I'm NOT on the "Arthas did nothing wrong" side of things, but from a place of basic human psychology, I can see why he did what he did in that moment.
And that's called sympathy. You feel his pain and understand why he did what he did. My fear is people empathizing with Arthas and saying they would have done the same. I sincerely hope that people would not engage in mass slaughter of civilians in a plague situation.
@@DesignerDave and thats why i think you can't recognize arthas did nothing wrong the fear clouds your judgement, just like arthas.
@Beast of the number Arthas did nothing to actually impede the Scourge.
It's fascinating to see fans argue with one of the devs of the game because he didn't validate their obsession with a pasty snot
@@wcure7254 Thank you for proving my point for me!
@@wcure7254 Last I checked no one arguing in the comments writes for blizzard despite the mysogyny implying otherwise.
@@brennoutof10 Let me guess. You unironically consider Anduin and/or Sylvanas well written characters who are totally credible rulers who don't only succeed from plot magic/writer rigging and either never did anything to deserve scorn or they did but they were forced into it.
@@galten7361 Actually, I agree that Anduin had his importance inflated because he's a good little Aryan. You are wrong about Sylvanas tho... she was really well written until Blizzard beat her with the villain bat for the crime of being a woman with trauma.
Aren't the bodies being burned when Jaina and Uther return to Strathom?
Yes, by the unplagued leftover citizens of Stratholme. Not by Arthas, who had already ran off to Northrend to chase Malganis, leaving the corpses and citizens (plagued and unplagued) behind to their fate.
The novel has Arthas' troops killing indiscriminately anyway for all its retcons.
In my opinion it's a bit of a strawman argument to just leave it at "killing people or the undead only bolster the undead" and "there's always another way".
Paladins should also be able to purge the city and prevent any corpses from being risen.
As long as you don't kill innocents, otherwise you're breaking a core tenets of the Paladins. There were non-plagued people within the city of Stratholme, and if Arthas had said "we need to separate the civilians from the infected and get them out" then Uther would have been totally on-board and would have fought side-by-side with the Prince.
But that's not what Arthas said. He said "Let's murder EVERYBODY RIGHT NOW!" Based on seeing a few people at the entrance.
Absolutely NOT acceptable Paladin behavior. :D
There's no strawman anywhere in my argument. There were 100% other ways to go about this and killing people would (and in fact did) bolster the Undead.
@Raion You are missing that WC's setting was still less of a superhero setting than in later lore (compare junk like Anduin Wrynns reviving whole squads of troops instantly with how none of such happened in WC3). There's no evidence in the lore circa RoC that a Paladin like Uther with his available followers could just snap their fingers and clean up a city.
@@DesignerDave So there were uninfected people who would have been just fine? If so then I guess the community and WoW has done a disservice to how the WC3 story is retold. Most people that played WoW view it as the entire city dead or not were going to turn into the undead.
Thanks for taking the time to reply to my first comment
Arthas did everything wrong trying to do everything right
I think Stratholme is the turning point where Arthas lets go of reason and becomes motivated solely by vengeance. I think the purge itself can be debated as to whether it was justified or not, though ultimately it didn't accomplish anything, but most importantly it was at this moment that Arthas becomes hellbent on pursuing Mal'Ganis no matter the cost, willing to sacrifice the lives of his men to achieve this. It becomes an entirely personal matter and he is no longer thinking about what is best for his people.
There is no justification for the Culling. Uther was right, Jaina was right, Medivh was right. Arthas was wrong.
He found his real career though so it worked out after Stratholme.
i think the best highlight when he used and backstabbed the mercenaries.
Human campaign was pretty clear arthas was turning evil way before he claimed frostmourne.
Honestly though, if Arthas had not taken Frostmourne, something tells me he would be the kind of king that would purge his own court because anyone could be secretly a Dreadlord in disguise.
I can imagine him becoming unstable, victim of his own paranoia.
He could also just be dead and reanimated.
what's wrong? he created the death knight class. wc3 should be thankful to him
Death Knights were created by Gul'dan in Warcraft II. ;)
Anyway dave your background music is too loud
more time to burn corpses.
don't purge the city = humans turn into zombies / ghouls almost immediately
purge the city = corpses take time to turn into abominations = more time to burn corpses - + you can also deal with the necromancers that are in the city while you are purging it and you also can let some soldier start burning corpses immediately.
also, the plague might have spread to other cities somehow, dunno...
at least that is somewhat plausible.
btw, I don't have a horse in that race.
But at least what Arthas did was "Morally Grey" (TM).
It was not morally grey... It was objectively evil. Even if those people were 100% ALL going to turn undead (which was not a guarantee, despite the indications by the mission's mechanics), taking away their agency to decide how they end their lives or if they can fight for their lives is just wrong.
@@DesignerDave I was not trying to say that what Arthas did was morally grey. It was meant as a tongue-in-cheek reference to the developers of WoW Battle for Azeroth stating that Sylvanas burning down Teldrassil being quote "morally grey", hence " "Morally Grey" (TM) ".
@@clueso_ They blamed the Jailer anyway and let the Night Elves use 1-ups and Sylvanas got to fly away into the afterlife.
If Arthas is in the wrong, what WAS the better answer? All lore insists that there were 'other ways' to stop Stratholme but never specifies, and I mean, Stratholme lorewise is what, Lordaeron's second largest city? I know you probably can't give a definitive answer but seriously, was just letting Stratholme undead massacre the east really better in the short-term?
So you're saying, murdering them yourself is the better option because... ?
Why exactly? It doesn't stop the spread of the plague, it doesn't stop the undead threat, it doesn't really even delay them because they can just raise the bodies later. All it does is delay people from doing what they should be doing... Fleeing to Kalimdor.
Whether or not anyone understood that, it's the definitive viewpoint... and ultimately it's the conclusion Jaina comes to and is absolutely the only correct move. Gather everyone left and fleeeeeeeeee.
Fighting with the undead = more undead. That's all there really is to it.
@@DesignerDave didn't the living win that war against the undead in the end, specifically by fighting with the right undead?
@@JaakkoKola No, they lost the war because Malganis' goal was not to take Stratholme or even collect zombies. It was to corrupt Arthas... And what did they do with Arthas? They assassinated the King and ended the war... The undead won...
@@DesignerDave and then what happened to Arthas once the third war was over? I don't mean to be rude but the living did very much with a war against the dead later on despite the fact that fighting the dead = more dead.
@@JaakkoKola They won since Arthas went full cartoon villain rather than actually trying to win through war. He was trying to recruit the players as his soldiers rather than just kill them.
Unless you wrote the story, it's just your opinion. 🤷🏻♂️
I designed the level and wrote some of the lines of dialogue in it after discussing it with Chris Metzen who wrote the story directly. It is authorial intent, not just my opinion.
@Ikena Show us where the Jailer is in WC3.
There must always be a Lich king
Lazy writing.