So there's a famous scene in Warcraft 3 where Arthas, upon seeing that grain infected with the undead plague had been distributed in Stratholme, orders the city purged.
There's some controversy over whether Arthas was wrong for doing this. On one hand, if you play the game, Arthas can come across as something of a John Snow-like character in the sense that he's the only one that seems to be taking the plague and the undead Scourge as the dire, even apocalyptic threat that they actually are. In the Stratholme level itself, the citizens are actively turning into the undead as you meet them, while the Scourge are present and active in the city, lead by Mal'ganis who is swelling their numbers with infected citizens. This might lead a player to conclude that Arthas is doing what is necessary to prevent the Scourge from getting a city-sized army and preventing his subjects from becoming the mindless slaves of the Lich King. A mercy kill, if you will.
But there are many, including the writers who seem to disagree. In fact, the guy who wrote the mission apparently thinks its obvious that Arthas was in the wrong and that you're a psycho if you think otherwise.
What causes this disconnect?
32 posts omitted.>>43520They literally needed to just present one alternative to what Arthas did, and I think everyone would be in agreement that this was the moment Arthas crossed the line and was wholly in the wrong.
As it stands, it looks like "let Arthas kill a city that is actively turning undead, or give Mal'ganis a city-sized undead army," with the weird implication from the writing team that letting the Scourge take Stratholme and turn its citizens into an undead legion was the morally right course of action.
>>42058Arthas' biggest mistake was stepping foot on Northrend. Once he did, he was gone.
He could have turned towards the right path before that point, but he foolishly got baited by Malganis.