Not a movie, but Warcraft 3 tried hard to convince you that Arthas was doing wrong things, when most of the things were pragmatic decisions.
The big one you’re supposed to think is the fork in the road where he, a paladin pledged to the light, had lost his way is when you discover a city you are trying to save from the undead is infected. Everyone in the city is dead, they just don’t know it yet. And when they die they will turn into more undead for an already stretched thin army to fight against. An entire city worth of fresh dead for the undead legion.
So Arthas takes his army, burns the city, and purges/kills everyone within, so that they do not suffer undeath, and those yet living don’t have another horde of dead to struggle fighting against. The people there don’t know why they are being killed, but are we supposed to believe that if Arthas had time to explain they’d want to become undead?
Whole thing was him doing the objectively correct thing, getting rightfully angry when his subordinates lack the conviction/loyalty/discipline to do what was best for all living people in the realm. And we’re supposed to think HE is the one who is wrong.
Nah. Miss me with that. Arthas did nothing wrong. Until later, when he did. But not when he burned that city.
Edit: I also just noticed this is a movie specific community. I thought the question was interesting and wanted to contribute, but given it is offtopic from movies, should I remove this?
Maybe I’m misremembering but it wasn’t that everyone was fated into undeath, but that they couldn’t know for sure who ate the infected grain or not, so Arthas simply decides to kill everyone. And I do think that’s a pretty evil way of dealing with it.
There was an implied question mark there, yes. I think all of the people the game shows you are infected, implying they all are, but Arthas couldn’t KNOW that.
I think the main point though is that once the infected did turn, anyone who might’ve avoided infection would have been killed by those who didn’t and had their corpse reanimated anyway. At best a few stragglers might have managed to flee at the cost of an entire new army of undead being raised.
I think that there was no reasonable alternative to what Arthas did if the goal was to defeat the army of undead, and also if the goal was to minimize lives lost.
It’s a moraly gray situation, but he is a Paladin. His duty is to uphold a certain standard, no matter what. He should have let the knights do the genociding.
Someone needs to be there for you, to guarantee your rights. You need to be able to say: “our hero is here! He will never hurt us!”.
Same reason the US army had a no one left behind policy. Less sodiers deserting, more fighting bravely, because they know their comrades would save them, even at a loss!
You know, the paladin code of ideals that are supposed to be embodied by those sworn to the light IS antithetical to Arthas’ actions. I had not considered that.
So perhaps one could say that the cold pragmatism of his choice would not have been wrong for an ordinary general to make, but was against his code, and betrayed a weakening or abandoning of his faith.
I still don’t think he was wrong broadly, but I think I agree with you that he was wrong with regards to being a paladin and a representative of what they are supposed to stand for.
Yeah, I hear it a lot how Arthas’ story was about a man whose ideals were slowly corrupted
When I played through WC3, I thought his sudden shift in tone was honestly jarring, as his previous (albeit morally questionable) decisions were made during a time of war, where the entirety of humanity was on the brink of collapse. And then I’m supposed to believe this demon showed up, taunted him and Arthas just… followed him? Because he was getting irrational?
I’d call that sudden shift from “I’d do anything to protect my kingdom” to “gotta beat up this demon real quick, taking a large army and leaving the northern empire exposed” completely unexpected
Then he got his soul stolen, after which point you can hardly blame him for anything that happens
Even before he grabs Frostmourne, hiring mercenaries to burn your boats so that your men are forced to follow your revenge quest is pretty fucked up.
I think the thing people miss is that even though what Arthas did at Stratholme was strategically correct, he was already doing it for the wrong reasons.
All of the Warcraft factions were eventually written like this. This mission was the best example before WoW, but the goal there was to make sure the alliance and horde didn’t become “good guys” vs “bad guys.”
Not a movie, but Warcraft 3 tried hard to convince you that Arthas was doing wrong things, when most of the things were pragmatic decisions.
The big one you’re supposed to think is the fork in the road where he, a paladin pledged to the light, had lost his way is when you discover a city you are trying to save from the undead is infected. Everyone in the city is dead, they just don’t know it yet. And when they die they will turn into more undead for an already stretched thin army to fight against. An entire city worth of fresh dead for the undead legion.
So Arthas takes his army, burns the city, and purges/kills everyone within, so that they do not suffer undeath, and those yet living don’t have another horde of dead to struggle fighting against. The people there don’t know why they are being killed, but are we supposed to believe that if Arthas had time to explain they’d want to become undead?
Whole thing was him doing the objectively correct thing, getting rightfully angry when his subordinates lack the conviction/loyalty/discipline to do what was best for all living people in the realm. And we’re supposed to think HE is the one who is wrong.
Nah. Miss me with that. Arthas did nothing wrong. Until later, when he did. But not when he burned that city.
Edit: I also just noticed this is a movie specific community. I thought the question was interesting and wanted to contribute, but given it is offtopic from movies, should I remove this?
Maybe I’m misremembering but it wasn’t that everyone was fated into undeath, but that they couldn’t know for sure who ate the infected grain or not, so Arthas simply decides to kill everyone. And I do think that’s a pretty evil way of dealing with it.
There was an implied question mark there, yes. I think all of the people the game shows you are infected, implying they all are, but Arthas couldn’t KNOW that.
I think the main point though is that once the infected did turn, anyone who might’ve avoided infection would have been killed by those who didn’t and had their corpse reanimated anyway. At best a few stragglers might have managed to flee at the cost of an entire new army of undead being raised.
I think that there was no reasonable alternative to what Arthas did if the goal was to defeat the army of undead, and also if the goal was to minimize lives lost.
It’s a moraly gray situation, but he is a Paladin. His duty is to uphold a certain standard, no matter what. He should have let the knights do the genociding.
Someone needs to be there for you, to guarantee your rights. You need to be able to say: “our hero is here! He will never hurt us!”.
Same reason the US army had a no one left behind policy. Less sodiers deserting, more fighting bravely, because they know their comrades would save them, even at a loss!
You know, the paladin code of ideals that are supposed to be embodied by those sworn to the light IS antithetical to Arthas’ actions. I had not considered that.
So perhaps one could say that the cold pragmatism of his choice would not have been wrong for an ordinary general to make, but was against his code, and betrayed a weakening or abandoning of his faith.
I still don’t think he was wrong broadly, but I think I agree with you that he was wrong with regards to being a paladin and a representative of what they are supposed to stand for.
Yeah, I hear it a lot how Arthas’ story was about a man whose ideals were slowly corrupted
When I played through WC3, I thought his sudden shift in tone was honestly jarring, as his previous (albeit morally questionable) decisions were made during a time of war, where the entirety of humanity was on the brink of collapse. And then I’m supposed to believe this demon showed up, taunted him and Arthas just… followed him? Because he was getting irrational?
I’d call that sudden shift from “I’d do anything to protect my kingdom” to “gotta beat up this demon real quick, taking a large army and leaving the northern empire exposed” completely unexpected
Then he got his soul stolen, after which point you can hardly blame him for anything that happens
As a guy who felt the same way what 20 years ago when I played that game.
Keep it up. World needs to know.
But he did fuck up in the next campaign when he grabbed frostmourne. That was objectively a bad move.
Even before he grabs Frostmourne, hiring mercenaries to burn your boats so that your men are forced to follow your revenge quest is pretty fucked up.
I think the thing people miss is that even though what Arthas did at Stratholme was strategically correct, he was already doing it for the wrong reasons.
The burning of the boats was the real turning point for me.
Yeah, the Culling of Stratholme broke him, but it wasn’t the wrong decision. And Uther and Jaina turning on him is part of why it broke him.
All of the Warcraft factions were eventually written like this. This mission was the best example before WoW, but the goal there was to make sure the alliance and horde didn’t become “good guys” vs “bad guys.”
And then they gave up in WoW and made Horde cartoonishly evil for no reason.
Kind of like Warhammer - there are no “good guys”. The important thing is that everyone has a reason to fight everyone.