Why Lordaeron Fell

We all know the story of the fall of Lordaeron and the rise of the Forsaken from playing Warcraft III (for those who do not, read this with special reference to the human campaign), but very few people seem to have looked at The Culling of Stratholme with anything but an emotional eye.

This is a difficult topic to broach, as there are so many elements to it.  It's not as simple as arriving at a city in wartime and finding that every inhabitant has turned traitor and it's also not as simple as a debilitating plague starting up in a major city during wartime.  It's effectively an Ebola outbreak in a major city during wartime where the strain of Ebola turns you into a particularly dangerous traitor whether you like it or not.

There is also a young man who has grown up on land which is known as "cursed" to the nearby Quel'dorei - a place where whispers seep up from under the ground and drive people mad - and taught by a gentle, loving father to love his people more than anything else and trained from birth to be a strong leader.

This young man is sent on a fact-finding mission with his mentor and the woman he loves when some strange reports come in from the outlying regions of their kingdom.  When he arrives at the villages and towns in question, he finds that the people have fallen victim to a plague which turns them into mindless zombies.  Not only are they at war with the plague being a deliberate attack from their adversary, but they are at war with their own people.  He rushes to find out how the plague is being spread and finds that certain shipments of grain have been infected.  He resolves to track down the shipments and try to destroy them before they can infect anyone else, arriving at the largest city aside from the the city of Lordaeron in the kingdom, only to find that the infected grain has already been distributed and that most, if not all, of the population are already infected.

The young man is faced with two choices here:

1.  Wait until they turn and lay siege to a city of people who cannot be starved out and who will not even lose even one person if the water supply is cut off, losing thousands of men in the attempt to wipe out the undead, all the while listening to the screams of the uninfected as they are brutally murdered.

2.  Kill the entire population as quickly and cleanly as possible, losing very few, if any, soldiers in the process and ensuring that none of the already condemned population suffers.  Why all?  Because people lie.  "No I didn't have any of the grain honest! BRAAAAINSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!"

When it's put like that, there really is only one option.  Unless you happen to be a particularly cruel person who enjoys the suffering of others.

I do agree that this was the turning point in Arthas' life, where he started his descent into madness and fell under the sway of the Lich King.  But I disagree emphatically that the decision to murder the residents of Stratholme in their beds was the first step in that descent.  This was a rational, sensible, kind decision.  The first step into his insanity was not made by him.  It was made by Uther the Traitor.

Yes, traitor.

This man not only refused to make the correct decision, but he refused to take the orders that anybody with even an iota of intelligence would have gratefully accepted.  During war, any act that deliberately helps the enemy is an act of treason.  And treason is punishable by death.  Even now, in this modern age.  By all rights, Arthas should have executed him on the spot.

I'm not sure why he didn't.  Perhaps because he entertained a large amount of affection and reverence for the man who had mentored him for so many years but I think it more likely that he had made enough hard decisions for one day and that he thought could trust his father to do the right thing.  How wrong he was.

The second step down his path of madness was made by Jaina.  She was his friend and they had, in the past, considered marriage.  She turned her back on him when he needed her the most.  I can tell you from experience how it feels when the worst thing that you could possibly imagine happens to you and everyone turns their back on you.  On that day, you find out who your true friends are.  And it's more than enough to drive you insane when you find that, instead of the ten or so you think it is, it's only two.  How much worse it must feel to find that you have none.

The third step, of course, was Arthas' decision to go to Northrend in order to chase after Mal'ganis.  The combination of the loss of the people he was closest to and having to order the deaths of thousands of the people he cared more about than his own life was enough to send him into a psychotic, vengeful rage with the dreadlord that persisted even into his undeath.  This is remarkable, as all other feelings, including the love of his people, abandoned him after his transformation into a Death Knight.

The final blow to his sanity was delivered by a messenger from his father in Northrend.  He discovered that the man he trusted most, the man he had believed to be a good and strong leader, had not executed the traitorous Uther and he was now ordered home like a truculent child to be disciplined for his actions.

Do I think that if they had both stayed and supported his decision he wouldn't have become the Lich King?  Do I think that his father's support would have prevented this?  No, I don't.  The path was planned out too carefully.  Perhaps the Lich King knew of the weakness in his closest friends and father, perhaps it was just an unexpected bonus and cut out a few steps on the path to madness.  Either way, it certainly gave the Lich King an opening.  The whispers began and the end drew near...

Do I believe that the fall of Lordaeron was a foregone conclusion given that Arthas was always destined to become the Lich King?  No.

I believe Lordaeron fell because Terenas was a bad king.  In peacetime, his land flourished and he governed kindly and wisely.  Faced with war from within, he showed weakness, an unwillingness to make the hard decisions required from a ruler during wartime.  A sacrifice of a few to save many is a brutal choice to have to make and Terenas Menethil just wasn't up to it.

His policy was to support Uther's decision - let entire cities be turned and then fight them.  This policy caused Lordaeron to be overrun by the undead in short order, the soldiers finding themselves outnumbered and fighting against the rotting husks of their loved ones.  Had he made the hard decision the country's population at the end of the war would have been much higher overall, since there would have been less undead for the living to fight.  Perhaps not enough to fill more than the city of Lordaeron and a few surrounding villages in Tirisfal Glades, but certainly enough to rebuild.

Uther's treachery remains unexplained.  Perhaps he had fallen victim to the "maddening whispers" that the elves knew lay in wait in Tirisfal.  Perhaps he was an agent of the Burning Legion or the Lich King.  Perhaps he was just a very, very stupid man.

How did Terenas Menethil devolve from a strong wartime leader in the Second War into an ineffectual twit?  Perhaps senility set in, perhaps Uther was drugging or poisoning him, perhaps he too fell to the whispers from beneath his home...

The story of Lordaeron is truly a sad one, but I believe the blame has too long rested on the wrong man's shoulders.