I think the fact that both games fully show Arthas's actions at Stratholme as "difficult, but correct", is the main reason why Arthas works as a tragic villain. He was wrongly abandoned by his friends, forced to kill his own people, and have been goaded into a path of "revenge at all costs", which in turn made him play with the forces he never understood. My main issue with the story of Arthas, is his fast descend into straight evil after claiming the Frostmourne. I kinda dislike the "powerful corrupting MacGuffin" items in storytelling. I like my villains to retain full agency.

As someone who has been spending way too much time keeping up with WoW lore and how it has changed under Afrasiabi and Danuser it's fun watching someone try to understand all of the most recent madness in only a few minutes.

In the book Arthas: Rise of the Lich King most of the events concerning Arthas in Warcraft 3 are novelized, and one of the reasons given for Arthas slowly turning to villainy is his loss of faith, after everything that has happened the Light has slowly stopped responding to Arthas because he didn't really believe in his actions, he wanted to do the right thing but wasn't convinced if it's really the right one, the Light only answers to people who believe in what they're doing no matter what their action is (that's why the Scarlet Crusade can call upon the Light while committing atrocities), so in this difficult moment not only did his mentor and friend abandon him but also his faith

At 4:30, uther isn't saying that all paladins outrank the prince I think, he's saying that him and arthas are both paladins, and Uther outranks Arthas within the paladin order.

Vaush, I never saw Stratholme as Arthas' "slippery slope", but the catalyst to his obsession with vengeance against Mal'ganis. He might not have done wrong there, it might not have been the start of his slippery slope, but it was the event that led to him losing his mind and thus starting the path to his slope. If Stratholme simply didn't happen, Arthas would not have been so vengeance-driven and would not have gone to Northrend unless another similar event forced his hand to make another terrible decision. Hell, if Uther and Jaina had been there with him and he didn't have to do it alone, he likely could have turned out okay after it and not gone after Mal'ganis. Traumatized, but not losing his mind and doing everything to kill Mal'ganis even if it meant selling his soul. Arthas' story wasn't "good guy do bad thing turn bad man," it was a story of a good person losing his mind from the horrors of war. He was going mad, not turning evil.

Vaush having more discussions on games, books, and movies could be its own successful channel.

What I don't like looking back was how quickly Arthas gave up trying to convince Uther. It was implied so much throughout the campaign how strong their bond was but Uther was almost uncaring about the events of Hearthglen and deserved the rude remarks Arthas starts the cinematic with. Doesn't help that Arthas had so much time between the defense of Hearthglen and travel to Stratholme to discuss what he saw with Jaina and Uther. One of those stories where characters don't just talk to each other about extremely important shit. Hearthglen and Stratholme are easily my favorite campaign missions in any RTS.

We need more Warcraft III stunlocks

Holy shit I did not expect this.

4:20 Uther outranks him "as a paladin" because they are both paladins and Arthas is still in training.

Arthas engaged in a special military operation in the region of Stratholme.

Honestly, I think Arthas' slippery slope towards cillainy started before Strathlome. It began all the way back in the defense of Hearthglen. Arthas was shook by the intensity of the attack, you see him almost break when it's almost over. Being the only one who knows exactly just how great a threat the Undead are and could be, he becomes desperate to kill Mal'Ganis as quickly aa possible. The desperation and horror he feels as he conducts the purge of Stratholme take theit toll on his sanity, which eventually lead to his actions in Northrend. The purge of Stratholme was absolutely necessary, but Arthas was simply not mentally or emotionally stable enough to deal with that situation unscathed. Arthas did nothing wrong in Stratholme. He just broke under the pressure. Even if it was objectively the right choice, it broke him anyway.

"Glad you could make it Arthas" "Watch your tone with me Arthas, you may be my Arthas but I'm still your superior as an Arthas"

He wasn’t having a “moral decline”, he was getting whispers from Nerzhul

He did the right thing that was a trap. Malganis knew he would do the right thing and that would destroy him and leave him alone.

I always took the scene as supposed to be a sketchy moment, he shows no hesitation that a normal, compassionate person would have. A person who is a little too eager to push the fat man in front of the trolley to save the people is a red flag Plus, it's also probably extremely traumatizing There's an overlap with the trolley problem, the question of something evil explicitly done to prevent something worse, sometimes it gets brought up in psychology contexts to discuss the dissonance between moral systems and what one is comfortable with doing

The Stratholme episode of WC3 was lackluster writing. Had they set up an alternative means of saving Stratholme citizens, like a new treatment to reverse the plague but it's uncertain and inefficient, and have Arthas forgo the riskier but more compassionate treatment in favor of a scorched earth campaign, then the moral slippery slope would have made a lot more sense.

Sylvanus isn't even a pale humanoid, she's a ghost who is possessing her own corpse.

I don't think it was the wrong choice, I think Arthas' failure in this moment was how he drove away his friends like an evil autocrat rather than find away to achieve the same goal while keeping his allies. He jumped to a conclusion and drove away his comrades when they didn't instantly fall in line. Just because it happened to be the correct conclusion doesn't fix his broken relationships.

Imagine thinking Griffith was right after he initiated the Eclipse.

Ah Feb 7th, a different time. A more innocent time.

Undead are people too. Can't believe Vaush would be this racist

Warcraft 3 stream when?

So, we're trusting the game is representing the facts of the story objectively. If this mission actually portrayed the purge as perceived by Arthas and his followers, then the civilians would all be "infected". It would cool if there were a cut-scene from Jaina or Uther's perspective, where some civilians don't turn into zombies. That would cast doubt on Arthas assumption.

This is why I love the old storytelling in blizzard. It was simple but so well told. The thing is Arthas was RIGHT! Everyone in the town had to be purged but slaughtering his own people mentally broke Arthas in a way he could never recover from. I think that was the point. mal'ganis did this to Stratholme because he knew what it would do to Arthas

Uther: "Glad I could make it Arthas" Arthas: "I watch my tone with you, Oldman, I may be the Prince but you're still my Superior as a Paladin." Uther: "as if you could forget, Listen Arthas, there's something about the Plague I should know." Uther: "Oh no, We're too late, these people have all been infected, they may look fine now but it's only a matter of time before they turn in to the undead." Arthas: "WHAT?!" Uther: "This ENTIRE CITY must be purged" Arthas: "how can I even consider that? there's got to be some other way." Uther: "DAMN IT ARTHAS, as my future king, Order me to purge this city." Arthas: "I'm not your king yet, Oldman, Nor should you Obey that command even if I were." Uther: "then you must consider this an act of treason." Arthas: "TREASON?! Have I lost my mind Uther?" Uther: "Have you? Prince Arthas, by your right of succession and sovereignty of your crown, you hereby relieve me of my command and suspend my Paladins from service." Jaina: "Uther...he can't jus-" Uther: "ITS DONE, those of you who have the will to save this land, follow him, the rest of you, get out of his sight." Arthas: "I've just crossed terrible threshold, Uther." Jaina: "Arthas?..." Arthas: "I'm sorry Jaina, you can't watch me do this."

Pretty sure Arthas saved Azeroth or the Alliance by purging the city, Stratholme was a huge problem, imagine if they just had ignored them, the power the scourage would have had, the only reason the Undead were so strong and able to stomp The Blood Elves was because of Loerdaron being turned into zombies, if not, the Undead would not have become a so strong. Also I think Uther knows he is still under the service of Arthas as his prince, but he is still a higher rank as a Paladin, he is treating him as a fellow Paladin not royalty

I think I'd like to see more of Vaush doing Warcraft stuff. He knows his lore and I personally enjoy when both my favourite streamer and long time favourite game cross over

The part that people are missing in the equation is the danger of the plague. We already have quarantine protocols irl for diseases that are much much less dangerous than the plague of undeath. This is a disease that not only kills you quickly, not only spreads, but after you die turns you into a malicious vector that has no desire other than to spread the plague and kill. We have nothing in the real world that is that dangerous. The best Arthas could theoretically do would be set up a quarantine zone where civilians could go, under soldier supervision, in chains, and if any of them turn they get kills instantly. But even then, this is assuming he has the time and men to set this up, along with it ignoring the fact mal'ganis was there, actively speeding up the spread and process. This was always a losing situation, and bloodshed was unavoidable. Inaction results in the entire town dying anyway, and being turned into a mindless slave army that can further spread the plague. My hypothetical comes with a huge risk, that if it goes wrong results in Arthas and his army being wiped out along with the town. And given the time pressures it would likely go wrong. If any of the factors were loosened. If the plague was less dangerous. If he had more time. If Mal'ganis wasn't actively there, then maybe a better solution could be found. But given the set up, no, he did make the most pragmatic choice. He wasn't wrong.

Steve Danuser really did Arthas dirty with how his role in Warcraft has ended recently. Now... all there is left of him is a flickering ball of blue light that is literally only worth 35 anima. Arthas is one of Warcraft's most iconic characters, and this debate as to whether his actions in Stratholme were right or wrong that still continues to this day is testament to that. Now he's literally been wiped completely from existence in an unceremonious manner while Sylvanas gets to monologue about what a naughty boy he was. As to where I stand on the Stratholme question... yes, Arthas did nothing wrong. His choice there was either kill those people before they become zombies or to have to kill them anyway after they become zombies. That said, this is the beginning of his downfall. His faith in The Light is shaken by Uther's refusal to go along with this plan, and seeing Jaina Proudmoore turn her back on him. But another thing about being able to wield The Light is that you don't necessarily have to be a good person to wield it. You just have to BELIEVE you're a good person... The Scarlet Crusade are a prime example of evil people who can use The Light. They believe their cause is righteous, that they are going to Make Lordaeron Great Again... and yet they torture and murder anyone who opposes them and are human supremacists... also, their leader is a Dreadlord. Also, in Burning Crusade, the Blood Elves found another way of tapping into The Light... by siphoning it from a Naaru that Kael'thas Sunstrider captured from Tempest Keep and sent back to Silvermoon... though they don't do that anymore and draw upon The Light no different to anyone else at this point.

I love how in the start of this he's hyped up by Warcraft 3 Lore and then he's confused and bored by the current World of Warcraft Lore, that's literally how it is.

Heh. I remember when Nathanos had a generic Forsaken model with his two big ass Hyenas. Just chillin out in the Plaguelands with his hidden raid boss stats

Finally something I can agree with Vaush on.

People out here calling this a trolley problem are stupid, who's life are you saving if you don't kill the infected townsfolk? They're already dead, killing Mal'Ganis won't save them. It's like a zombie bite, they're infected and within hours they start turning into zombies, so you mercy kill them before they become a zombie.

I am BEGGING for more Vaush WoW lore breakdowns please

This is like the angel of death carrying out a mercy killing.

4:06 I can explain, you see Uther is part of the Order of the Knights the Silver Hand, an order of Paladins from the many Kingdoms of Azeroth, they are like an international organization, Arthas is the prince of Lordaeron but also a member of the Silver Hand, as a senior member of the Order Uther out rank Arthas, but as a citizen of Lordaeron Arthas out ranks him

As Asmongold said, Arthas made the decision only a king and a ruler could make. I agree he made the correct call on this instance, but part of what makes it so interesting is the discussion it provokes. Some takes makes more sense than others though.

Content drought so dry the editors had to go back an entire month to find something to post

I think if the Warcraft movies continued the Lich King story arc would have been a major hit like Lord of The Rings hit.

He is correct but as uther says it's the threshold for crossing the line and this is the start to him turning evil. If he stopped here and exampled why this was needed to be done because he was the only one the dreadlords told what the plague was but he keeps going

The virgin kantian uther vs the sigma utilitarian arthas.

I never played WOW, but I’ve heard a lot about it.

Glad you could make it, Vaush.

Ah back when Warcraft's story was worth a thought.

"SEE? THEY ARE GREEN TINTED."

I agree. His actual moral slide happens later. Additionally, yes. Warcraft is so horribly inconsistent. Lore is fucked.

18:00 They should have just said that resurrection is a backdoor to death and the gods of the afterlife or whatever don't notice when a random level 13 druid gets resurrected but when it's the warchief or anyone of historical significance they make sure they stay dead. And then you can have more powerful resurrection spells that work on bigger characters etc

Here's how they could have made the story actually morally ambivalent: Before he dies Kel'thuzad says something about the people of Stratholme joining the Scourge soon enough. So Arthas travels there, demands Uther and his forces assist him in purging the city, which they obviously refuse since its obviously a trick by Kel'thuzad, and many of Arthas' own men abandon him as well. Arthas sees to the city being purged anyway, all the while never actually encountering any undead. And shortly after it is done, the deliveries of plagued grain arrive.

Vaush should do some takes on the differences between the intros of Fallout 1 and Fallout 2

Back to the wage cage.. the "plague" cage.. whip out those rocket boots and figurines

glad you could Bake it Uther.

I think it's genius story telling. The reason it works is because he's correct in doing this, but it's still a really heinous act. By doing it, he realizes in the worst of ways just how horrifying the Legion is, and will now stop at nothing to defeat them.

I feel like there's a misinterpretation from people who follow Warcraft Lore (as convoluted as it has become, who can blame anyone. I've all but given up after Legion with the constant rewriting), in thinking that the Culling of Stratholme was his 'turning point' it was *A* turning point. But it wasn't *THE* turning point. Had Uther or Jaina (preferably both) remained with him, there was probably a small chance that he would have lead his foolish expedition into Northrend to chase Mal'ganis. Was what he did to the City what someone could argue as Evil? Possibly, you could TRY and frame it as being Lawful Evil - doing something wrong in the pursuit of ones goals or internal code. But I think that'd be flawed. Hell, the flashback dungeon in WoW and the couple of missions leading up to Stratholme prime the players to understand that the tainted grain is basically a guaranteed death sentence for those that eat it. And when they die shortly after eating it, they come back to 'life' as the mindless undead. If you *really* want to look towards his true downfall, look at him burning his ships to keep his men trapped in Northrend with him and then blaming it on the 'monsters' (Aka, the neutral goblin, ogre, and troll mercenaries that had been helping you up to that point). In those last days/weeks where he was truly capable of *real* evil in service of getting his revenge on Mal'ganis. If the Culling had gone any other way, you might have been looking at someone who would likely not have been praised, but at least understood and respected for being a Ruler who was willing to take on such a uniquely horrifying burden onto themselves in service of their kingdom and their people. But instead, with the abandonment of some of his closest friends and the goading of a master deceiver, one of the greatest tragic heroes-turned-villains in Warcraft was born. Wrath of the Lich King was regarded as the last "Great" expansion by many people, and it's hard not to see why -- even if I personally consider Mists of Pandaria my favorite; the level of talent that went into Orcs & Humans and what eventually turned into Warcraft 2, 3, Vanilla, TBC, and WotLK lead to such an epic and cathartic expansion that even Legion; which saw us finally seeing and 'dealing' with Sargares didn't even come close to scratching the same itch. And this is coming from someone that loves Illidan, Demon Hunters, and all the Bizarre Warhammer Space/Warp/Chaos stuff that WoW ripped off probably to an irrational degree.

I think I recall somewhere from another WoW youtuber that the plague is literally uncurable? There was a whole WoW questline about this one person getting infected and eventually succumbing to the disease and it took like the magic of dragons to even just prevent him from coming back as undead

Hey a zombie plague is no joke. A pragmatic and ruthless approach but ultimately mostly correct.

The thing is, you get a cutscene for after the purge is done with Jaina walking through the slaughtered city. In it you can see random citizens collecting the bodies and mourning the dead. This suggests that some survived the purge (they might have hidden or something) and did not in fact turn into the undead afterwards, meaing Arthas probably purged a lot of uninfected as well and the whole "every house has zombies in it" was just a gameplay convention for the mission and shouldn't be taken story-literally. Arthas might have still been right, but it's not quite as cut-and-dry.

😂 the funny thing is that Mal’Ganis is back in Shadowlands, so we didn’t fully end him in legion. Can’t kill him.

It's like people who get blasted by radioactivity. They are going to die, just depends on if they die while still feeling okay, or days or weeks of excruciating misery.

Oh my god I still play Warcraft frozen throne to this day

It's now cannon that Vaush is a Death Knight

Cool next analyze the moral ambiguity Link's awakening.

The thing is Vaush, it's not that he did anything wrong per se, but it's an indication of his overall mentality. He's always extremely quick to resort to mass murder and violence as a solution to problems and Uther chides him for it in the second mission of the game where he's like "Yeh let's like murder all the orc vermin for glory" and Uther is like "That's really not paladin like" and begins to give a shpeel about the mentality one needs and Arthas just goes "Yeh whatever". He does this constantly. So then we get to Stratholme and Mr Murder is like "Yeah let's just kill everyone" and by this point Uther has had enough of his shit and loses it on him because now he's saying it about his own people too. Uther might be wrong in the specific instance, but you can totally see why he reacts the way he does. Imagine it's a straight up zombie movie and before the apocalypse even happens you've got some kill crazy nutjob hanging around constantly suggesting murder as a solution to problems like the starbucks guy getting your order wrong and you have to physically restrain him from decapitating service workers on the regular. It really colors things when they're the person to suggest we murder the bitten folk before we even know precisely how many are bit or exactly how the infection works or if there's a cure and so on. It becomes almost impossible to take them seriously and by that point they've done it so often you've developed new wrinkles in your brain to handle the input of telling them to shut the fuck up and calm down. That they're right in the specific instance is besides the point that it's a suggestion and plan that someone *else* has to suggest and that they need to reach that conclusion themselves because they know Murdery McMurderface is saying it because they're a psycho who hasn't even done the utilitarian calculus properly. And the characters don't get a chance to reach the conclusion themselves because Arthas throws a hissy fit and pulls rank on them and dismisses them before they can get into the city and see for themselves that he's right. Arthas is also assured and confident in his decision and has no remorse for it, even in terms of "Well it sucked but it was necessary.". He just gets angry at Malganis for it and it's always in terms of "You took my subjects from me" rather than "You killed people". He was always a psycho, it's just that the game places him in situations where it obscures that from the player in various ways until it very suddenly doesn't. But by that point "Oh it's the Lich King doing it.". Except it isn't. He isn't being mind controlled. This is explicit in side universe content. Like, he's written as a legitimately psychopathic person until the dumbshit shadowlands stuff. He even keeps a serial killer momento chest with Sylvanas' blood in it, alongside stuff from other people he's ruined the lives of.

Most forsaken continue to rot and have to patch themselves back together using other peoples dead body parts.

Wasn’t expecting this

uther didn't say he outranked the crowned prince, he said he outranks him as a paladin, which they both are. that's the entire reason he can dismiss arthur and uther just goes along with it. It's like of a prince is in the army as a captain, and he argues with a general. the general has rights over the prince since he's of a higher rank, but the captain has certain powers over the general as a prince.

The shit Arthas did to Sylvanas was enough to earn a place in warcraft’s Super Hell (Tm), let alone the things he did to the people closest to him in life.

The problem was the outcome. Ner’zhul had a new champion to crush Lordaeron while Lordaeron lost a king an a prince and eventually fragmented.

A small correction to Vaush, the Sylvanas bikini art is, in fact, *not* official.

It's nice to listen to Vaush talk about gaming stuff from time to time.

Genuinely love this game, I’ve been playing it for 10+ years and I taught myself how to play it when I didn’t even know English, glad Vaush is talking about it it has a place in my heart.

Art has was right about Stratholme. He was wrong to throw Uther under the bus for recoiling at the horror of the purge. Instead of ordering Uther to purge the city, he should have respected his mentor and explained as they headed into the city. As the people start to turn, Uther would have seen the necessity to Arthas’ plan and would have backed it. But Arthas got a big head and tried to leverage a crisis to cement his power in Lordaeron. That was what Arthas messed up, and that was what tipped him down a darker path. He was right about Strarholme. He was wrong about Uther and Jaina.

Here what I never understood how does Arthas being the one who slaughters the people of Startholme prevent Mal'ganis or anyone else from raising them as zombies? Even by his own twisted logic Arthas failed to "save his people" the culling of Stratholme only makes sense as a narrative display of the creeping insanity and stubbornness that would eventually lead Arthas to ruin otherwise it serves no purpose

Even after playing Warcraft 3 in full and a very brief stint in WOW, I fucking hate the names in this series. I _know_ all the characters being mentioned in this video, I just never associate any names besides Arthas and a few others that are simple enough, the rest is word soup. Turalyon and Gavinrad were opposed to Mal'Ganis, Clegg'Holdfast and Taight'Bussi.

Yeah, in the Stratholme mission there is no one to save. Everyone is dead.

They didn't infect more grain because it could only work once, as a sneak attack, and they had to actually infect all the grain. So they had to control the distribution area for long enough to perform the ritual, while also staying undetected by the wider Alliance forces so that it actually gets shipped where it needs to go.

The light inquisition is either next or the one after it

This is the Vawush content we want!

Yes of course

I need an Illidan video next

I like the nerd tangents

Idgaf how deep I am in Elden Ring, this is exactly the kind of Vaush Pit content I’m looking for rn

One of the things that always bothered me is that the response that usually people give out is that he really should’ve just left instead of purging the city. Like seriously where are you going to run to? Also, they completely forget that paladins are obligated to protect the week and do their best to prevent any world ending threat.

i feel like Jaina and Uther made the worst fuckin decision Because what Vaush argues is one thing, but lets assume, JUST ASSUME that there was another way, and so reality Uther and Jaina were dealing with was that Arthas got obsessed with killing those people as the only way and was going to commit genocide for no reason. Why... why didnt they try to stop him? What the hell was that. Jaina UwU cant watch you do this? what the fuck do you mean, why is Uther not trying to at least 1v1 Arthas, convince armymen that Arthas is trying to commit genocide, fuckin attempt to stop it.

15:00, yeah it's almost like next thing after the cull was Arthas losing his shit and chasing him to Northrend.

All of this, plus, Uther is supposed to be a dick there. That's what paladins do in situations like this. It sucks that they brought back Uther later in Shadowlands, just to make him not "pure." It ruins his Stratholme stance more imo. He should have resisted the evil angels' instructions at all

If there was a zombie apocalypse and one bite can turn you into a zombie and someone in your group was bitten, what would you do? would you wait for him to turn before killing him risking someone else gets infected? would you kill him before he turns to preserve his humanity? The mission also clearly allows Arthas to wait for them to turn undead before killing them, so you can go through the culling whilst only killing zombies and not a single civilian, if he was a monster that killed civilians then the mission would have been "They might not all be infected, we need to kill every single civilian to make sure that none turn to zombies, even if we don't know who is infected and who isn't."

Damn this sucked me right back into the wow days

how did arthas know everybody just had been eating raw, tainted grain?

"the Culling of Stratholme" is a bit different, lore wise. The Infinite Dragonflight are trying to meddle with the timeline and completely alter the course of the future by killing Arthas and stopping him from culling Stratholme. Their reasoning is, if he never called Stratholme, he would've never progressed to Icecrown in his thirst for revenge for Mal'Ganis, and become the lich king. Your goal as a party was to stop the infinite Dragonflight and help Arthas, in the past, survive to the present.

Vaush is out here asking the real questions

The designer said he was supposed to just run.....

It's not that paladins outrank princes. It's that they are both paladins and Uthar is a higher rank paladin. It's like when British princes join the air force or navie they still have to follow chain if command. In the field.

Arthas is correct after the fact but the grain was only just delivered so there’s no way to know how many people are actually infected and it’s pretty clear he has already decided the whole city has to be “purged”.

Oh, but Vaush, you are missing the cutscene AFTER this event that show uninfected citizens going through the carnage. The Culling is suppose to make you feel justified in your actions, just like Arthas. But afterward you are shown this cutscene of people who survived the ordeal, thus there were innocent people that could have been saved, but due to the all or nothing method Arthas had adopted, they died as well.

Lorderan fell anyway. Arthas slaughtered untold innocents for nothing. In fact his actions here is largely the reason he started his journey to become the lich king, is victory by any means necessary really victory? Would he have he pursued Frostmoune had he not taken this step?

Sylvanas is still hot because she’s a banshee, she’s not a regular undead zombie lol

Where are the streams vaoush

The fact that the purge of stratholme was justifiable was thematically important.

Finally we get some good fucking content back