In Defense of Uther the Lightbringer

Counterarguments to "Succeeding You: The Moment of Greatest Horror in Warcraft's History" by The Brothers Krynn

It isn’t often that I find myself in disagreement with

The Brothers Krynn

when it comes to media analysis. Indeed, the good Brothers and I tend to share numerous sensibilities when it comes to our tastes and thinking, and it is this commonality which has enabled us to work so well together when it comes to the weekly fiction writing events of Warrior Wednesday, which is dedicated to high and epic fantasy, and Sword & Saturday, which is dedicated to dark fantasy and pulp adventure stories. But we are not a monolith, and so it is inevitable that topics of disagreement will arise on occasion.

This is one such occasion. Two days ago at the time of writing, the good Brothers released an article discussing a key event from one of the most beloved games in a favorite franchise of my childhood, Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its fantastic expansion, The Frozen Throne. If you haven’t yet read this article, I implore you to do so now. It will be key for understanding the arguments I plan to make here. I’d also like to make it clear that I hold no animosity despite our difference in views here. I simply think the good Brothers happened to present an uncharitable take in this respect and seek to highlight my reasoning.

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Many fans of the Warcraft franchise consider the third game to be one of, if not the pinnacle entry in the series, greater even than the now gargantuan World of Warcraft with its nine expansions, going on ten sometime in the next year or so. I include myself among this number, and I’ll not deny that I’ve spent a great deal of time over the years immersed in the Warcraft franchise and the world of Azeroth. While I got my start with Warcraft II: Tides of Darkness, it was the third game which stood out as the most influential and enjoyable in the franchise for me.

I’m hardly alone in this sentiment, and there’s good reason for this. As the good Brothers touch on in their article, Warcraft III’s story has some of the highest highs and lowest lows for the world of Azeroth and her people. This game, which covers the events of the Third War, (the First and Second Wars being the first and second games respectively) breaks away from the previously established norm of the war being a pitched and bloody conflict between the Alliance, a faction comprised of the human kingdoms of Stormwind and Lordaeron, as well as the dwarves of Ironforge, their gnomish allies, and the elves of Silvermoon; and the brutal Orcish Horde, which expanded to include factions of ingenious and more-than-a-little-mad goblins, as well as the tribalistic and savage Amani trolls who considered the elves to be their ancestral enemies. Instead, the Third War saw multiple factional conflicts taking place, thanks to the introduction of the new factions, the brutal Undead Scourge, and the feral guardians of nature, the Night Elves.

In the good Brothers’ article, they take a closer look at the campaign which comprises the first act of Warcraft III, The Scourge of Lordaeron. This portion of the story appropriately takes place in Lordaeron, and it primarily follows the growing conflict between this powerful human kingdom and the Cult of the Damned, the source of the coming Undead Scourge. In the opening moments of this campaign, we’re introduced to King Terenas Menethil II and his advisory council. In this opening cinematic, we learn that skirmishes between the armies of Lordaeron and remnants of the Horde that attempted to wipe them out in Warcraft II have been worsening. It’s an old problem rising up to haunt them, but in the midst of this, we also find out that a new plague has begun spreading through the outskirts of the kingdom. A representative of the Kirin Tor, an organization comprised of some of Azeroth’s most knowledgeable and powerful mages, tells the king that they’re ready to aid in quarantining those infected, which the king refuses. He does not wish to instill panic in his people, not with the orcs seemingly on the move again.

This introduction does a good job in establishing the ground work of the story to come, but it’s the characters we’re introduced to after this which are the most important to this story: Arthas Menethil, the son of King Terenas and Crown Prince of Lordaeron, and his mentor, Uther the Lightbringer, leader of the Silver Hand paladins and the focus of this essay.

I was first introduced to the character of Uther in Warcraft II. Like most named characters in that earlier game, he had little in the name of characterization. In fact, at that time, most of his lore was relegated to a blurb in the game’s instruction manual. This was the case with pretty much every character in that game, save for a couple. Warcraft III brought its story into the limelight in a way the previous entries in the series simply couldn’t manage. Where before we were given our in game story through a small smattering of cinematics and the objective breakdowns before each mission, now we were treated to fully voice acted in game cutscenes and rendered cinematics. Because of this, we’re able to get a much better realized view of who these characters were.

There’s a certain charm to the art Chris Metzen drew for Warcraft II back in 1995. This was his depiction of Uther in the manual.

I say “were” because these days, the lore of Warcraft has become a terrible mess. Many beloved character stories were severely damaged by poor decision making in the stories of the Battle for Azeroth and Shadowlands expansions, with the Shadowlands retcons in particular being extremely damaging to the stories of both Arthas and Uther. As such, we’ll be taking the story of Warcraft III as it was presented from the time of its release to the end of the World of Warcraft expansion Wrath of the Lich King, which seems to be the same timeline which the Brothers generally followed.

When we’re introduced to Arthas and Uther, their dynamic as both master and student and respected peers is made clear almost immediately. King Terenas, considering Uther a trusted friend and recognizing his talents as both a decorated knight, a storied war hero, and a skilled teacher, entrusts the Lightbringer with instructing his son not just in the ways of combat, but of leadership and restraint. And really, who better to see this done than Uther? During the Second War, he was anointed by Alonsus Faol, Archbishop of the Church of the Holy Light, to lead the Order of the Silver Hand, a then new order of paladins established to help protect the people of the Alliance against the Orcish Horde and their demonic masters. Upon the Order’s establishment, Uther, along with the other four paladins who would lead alongside him was gifted with a holy libram by Alonsus - the Libram of Justice, which marked him as both the leading arbiter of justice within the Order and its supreme commander.

The hope of King Terenas is quite clear - he wishes for his son to not only be raised to be a worthy king, but a hero, a beacon of hope and wisdom for his people. Thus, he turns to a man who already exhibits these properties to teach him. After all, it’s said by many in Lordaeron, and the Church in particular, that Uther was the wisest and most noble of all their paladins. Unfortunately, the hope of King Terenas dies with the culling of Stratholme, but we’ll get to that in due course.

Over the course of the first act, we learn numerous things about Arthas and Uther alike. Naturally, more of that time is dedicated to Arthas as he’s the focal character of this story. In it, we learn of how quickly his skills have progressed. Not only is he a capable fighter, but he’s able to wield the divine magics of the Holy Light much like Uther can. In fact, Arthas’ prowess is such that Uther has already inducted him into the Order of the Silver Hand, quite an impressive accomplishment for the young Prince. However, it’s clear that Arthas still has much to learn. While he usually portrayed as stalwart, good humored, and honorable in the story’s first half, we’re also shown that he’s brash, quick to anger, and prone to impatience and recklessness.

“Damn, these orcs will never surrender.”

“Then let’s get in there and destroy the beasts!”

“Remember, Arthas, we are paladins. Vengeance cannot be a part of what we must do. If we allow our passions to turn to bloodlust, then we will become as vile as the orcs.”
-Uther to Arthas upon learning envoys sent to the orc camp outside Strahnbrad were killed.

Fortunately, those aspects are tempered by the people in his life, Uther being one of them. The other who helps temper it is his beloved, Jaina Proudmoore. Like Arthas, she’s also a child of status, being the daughter of Grand Admiral Daelin Proudmoore, leader of the seafaring Kul’tiran people. She’s also an apprentice like he is, in this case a mage of the Kirin Tor studying underneath their leader, the Archmage Antonidas. The last one to try and help him is one of the leaders of the Ironforge dwarves, Muradin Bronzebeard, who joins Arthas in his journey north after the events of the culling of Stratholme.

We’ll touch on why Muradin still joins Arthas even after the culling later on. For now, we need to look at why Arthas was driven to commit this act in the first place. Despite his better nature, Arthas’ quick temper becomes the chink in his armor that the deceptive forces leading the Cult of the Damned are able to use to their advantage, and the culling of Stratholme is in part the result of their machinations. Taking place just past the halfway point of the campaign, the culling occurs after Arthas, Uther, and Jaina have had multiple encounters with the plague and the undead monsters it turns its victims into. During their journey, they discover that the plague has been created and unleashed by the necromancer Kel’thuzad, a former Kirin Tor mage who fell to the temptations of what used to be the biggest of big bads in the Warcraft universe, the demonic Burning Legion. Kel’thuzad has been specifically working under a master named Mal’Ganis, a vampiric demon known as a dreadlord who’s been operating out of Stratholme in secret.

“The plague was never meant to simply kill my people. It was meant to turn them…into the undead!”
-Arthas upon discovering an infected grain shipment in the town of Hearthglen.

Through Kel’thuzad and their later investigations, the trio discover that the plague has been spreading through infected grain shipments. They make an effort to stop the shipments from being delivered, but find that in the case of the town of Hearthglen and later Stratholme, a city of some 30,000 people, they’re too late. The grain has been shipped out and distributed amongst the citizenry. Driven to desperation by the terrible fate he’s already seen the plague inflict on both his people and the land itself, a desperation which later turns to vengeful fury by Mal’Ganis’ goading, Arthas makes a difficult choice that is unconscionable to the minds of his mentor and his lover: to cull the city in an effort to halt the spread of the plague.

It’s when discussing this same point in the story that the good Brothers state the following in their essay:

Forced to make a tough choice, and abandoned by the woman he loves and his political mentor, Arthas chooses to cull Stratholme’s 30,000 people who have all been infected and have but mere hours before they become undead, even as Mal’Ganis begins forcibly turning them.

Aware of this, his former mentor Uther uses the incident to try to destroy Arthas politically, as he has long chaffed since the prince came of age. At first Uther had remained the dominant power in Lordaeron, but since some time ago as the prince had begun to flex and text his own authority and come into his own, he had begun to take over royal-duties from his ailing, elderly father for whom Uther often ‘spoke’.

It is evident that even were there to be no Zombie apocalypse Uther would have tried to destroy Arthas politically or have him killed. There can’t be two heads in a kingdom, and power is what Uther craves most.

To be a bit blunt, I’m not sure what lore the Brothers were referencing if this is the idea of Uther they came away with. It’s certainly not representative of how he’s portrayed in Warcraft III. In fact, quite the opposite is true. To deal with a smaller point first, Uther isn’t Arthas’ political mentor. His role in the Prince’s life is to give him military training and spiritual guidance, not to teach him how to maneuver through dealings with Lordaeron’s nobility or the King’s advisory council. However, the far more egregious claim is that Uther has “long chaffed” against Arthas since he came of age, and always had it in his mind to betray the Prince. The Brothers go so far as to claim that, “It is evident that even if there were to be no [z]ombie apocalypse[,] Uther would have tried to destroy Arthas politically or have him killed. There can’t be two heads in a kingdom, and power is what Uther craves most.”

As I stated earlier, I hold no animosity for their analysis, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t state quite clearly that the above claim is plain nonsense. Across the story of the first campaign, whenever Arthas’ personal weaknesses begin to show in the form of his brashness, anger, and recklessness, it was Uther who was first to council him to act with patience and restraint. In the Warcraft setting, paladins are holy warriors who dedicate their lives to defending the people under their charge who cannot defend themselves. Thus, as a both a good paladin and mentor should, Uther tries his very best to impart the wisdom of raising arms only in defense of the people of Lordaeron. For the strong to protect the weak is righteous action in accordance with the tenets of the Church of the Holy Light. (As you might guess, this is the Warcraft universe’s equivalent to Christianity.) In the case of Uther, his devotion to these tenets is such that he is willing to stand firm on the ideals of his faith, even to the point that he would refuse Arthas’ order to cull the citizens of Stratholme, who are among the very people he is bound by both duty and faith to protect.

“You are not my king yet, boy! Nor would I obey that order even if you were!”
-Uther refusing Arthas’ command to purge Stratholme.

This does not paint Uther as a would-be regicide who craves power above all. Rather, it paints Uther as a man of principle who views the ideal of protecting the weak in a manner that is fundamentally different from Arthas in what is an unthinkably desperate situation. Yes, this is me saying that I do recognize Arthas is forced to make an impossible choice here. Across the course of the campaign, starting right from the opening cutscene, we learn that the Plague of Undeath, as it comes to be called, is one that the Kirin Tor and the priests of the Church of the Holy Light are still researching. Uther and Arthas both know this, but only Arthas has seen firsthand how virulent the plague truly is, when the infected grain in Hearthglen causes them to be swarmed not just by newly made undead in the city, but by a host of the monsters marching in their direction.

After this incident, Arthas’ desperation to protect his people takes firm hold, causing him to act ever more recklessly in pursuit not only of a means of stopping the plague, but his hated foes as well. This draws his worse nature right to the forefront. He becomes angry and confrontational, lashing out at Uther and Jaina alike. His heart is in the right place, Arthas only wishes to protect his people and he hates seeing them suffer such an atrocious end. But we all know what is said of good intentions, and the gate leading down that road to Hell is thrust wide open when they reach Stratholme. Immediately upon arrival, Arthas sees and hears that the citizens have already been infected. He knows how little time they have. He’s the only one among those present who truly understands this. In that instant, Lordaeron’s Prince feels as though he has no other choice; he must weigh the lives of one city against the entirety of this kingdom.

Uther and Jaina don’t have this same awareness, though. They weren’t present to see how quickly the citizens of Hearthglen turned. As such, hearing Arthas order the citizens of Stratholme all be killed without even the slightest consideration that they try to find a way to save them is tantamount to butchery in Uther’s eyes, and he’ll have no part in it. He can’t believe that his pupil, the good and noble son of his King, would be willing to entertain the idea that slaughtering the entire city is the just and proper solution. That disbelief is then compounded when, after making it clear that he won’t take part in the culling, Arthas once again gives into his unstable emotions, his weakness. He orders the entire Order of the Silver Hand be suspended, going so far as to mark them as traitors to Lordaeron. As a member of the Order himself, that Arthas fails to recognize the aid his fellow paladins might be able to provide the people of Stratholme speaks to how blind his growing thirst for vengeance has made him.

“Then I must consider this an act of treason.”

“Treason? Have you lost your mind, Arthas?”

“Have I? Lord Uther, by my right of succession and the sovereignty of my crown, I hereby relieve you of your command and suspend your paladins from service.”
-Arthas to Uther outside the gates of Stratholme.

At this point, Uther and his paladins leave. Later, after seeing the death and destruction left in the wake of the culling, he goes to inform King Terenas of Arthas’ actions. What Uther doesn’t do at any point in this course of events, nor in the events that take place in the second campaign, The Path of the Damned, which follows Arthas after he’s fallen and become a Death Knight, is use his status and position to engage in power politics or attempt to usurp rule of the kingdom. The Brothers suggest that by informing King Terenas of what’s happened, that he must’ve also attempted to have Arthas tried for the culling, and that in so doing, Uther himself committed a serious crime by the laws of Lordaeron. However, this argument overlooks numerous important details:

Firstly, it’s never once established that Uther informing King Terenas about Arthas’ actions came with a suggestion of trial for the Prince, nor is it established that either of these actions would be considered a crime in Lordaeron. The Brothers attempt to tie this allegation to historical incidents from Medieval Europe with the following passage:

To try a royal prince as one might a disobedient lord is an unheard of crime in Lordaeron, and really one ought to look on it as England sought to do to the princes of the French royal line in the Hundred Years Wars, or as Simon de Montfort might well have liked to do to Edward III when he was still just a prince and his father was held prisoner. Heck one could compare it to how the Woodvilles and Edward IV destroyed his younger, impetuous and treasonous brother.

However, while the world of Azeroth is something of a medieval pastiche, it’s never portrayed as a parallel of medieval society. Pulling examples from historical reality to draw parallels to fictional stories can often be an interesting and engaging way to analyze them. This is not one of those cases. The parallels drawn here don’t fit because there are no actions or events relevant to them portrayed in this story. As stated above, it’s never established that Uther even suggested that Arthas be tried for his crimes, and even if it was, it’s also never established that to do so would itself be a crime in Lordaeron.

Moving onto the next point overlooked. Later events in the story reveal that King Terenas agreed with Uther’s warning. Despite the great sorrow it caused him, Terenas was of the same mind of Uther following the culling, and believed that Arthas’ judgement, and perhaps even his sanity, were wavering after the horrendous battle against the undead in Hearthglen. This culminates in an order sent by emmisary to the men who followed Arthas to the frozen continent of Northrend in pursuit of Mal’Ganis, which is where Muradin joins the story. By order of King Terenas, as suggested by Uther, they are to board their ships and return home. As expected, Arthas views this as further betrayal by Uther, and it seems the Brothers are taking up the same line, citing this moment as evidence of Uther undermining the Prince’s authority. The reality is quite different. This move is a desperate final attempt to stop the Prince from taking his path of vengeance too far, a fact we can easily glean based on Uther’s previous interactions with Arthas across the first half of the campaign.

Now then, before we touch on the final point, there’s a question that needs to be answered: why does Muradin Bronzebeard join with Arthas even after the culling of Stratholme? Well, to put it quite simply, it’s because he’s not aware that it happened, just as most people in Lordaeron aren’t. In the case of Muradin, this is because he’d been on an expedition to the northern continent and got separated from his men, so when Arthas and his men showed up, he believed that they were reinforcements sent to aid them. In the case of Lordaeron and its people, Uther and Terenas both recognized that if they were to make what happened public, the panic that would cause would almost certainly collapse not only the kingdom, but possibly the Alliance itself. Arthas also recognizes this. It’s why he keeps what he did at Stratholme a closely guarded secret from Muradin and only tells him about the demon he’s hunting, laying all blame at Mal’Ganis’ cloven hooved feet. What’s more, Uther isn’t the only one who recognizes how far Arthas has fallen. Muradin, a fellow ruler of his own people, sees much the same.

“You lied to your men and betrayed the mercenaries who fought for you. What’s happening to you, Arthas? Is vengeance all that’s important to you?”
-Muradin Bronzebeard, after Arthas hired mercenaries to burn the boats his men were meant to leave on and used them as scapegoats to keep his men on side.

With that said, there’s one final point the good Brothers overlook in their assessment of Uther, the morality which drives him to make this case to King Terenas, the authority Uther answers to above all others: his devotion to the Holy Light.

Recall what I mentioned about the Light earlier. Before the Warcraft writers altered the Light in the WoW Legion expansion, wherein it was changed to a preternatural force of cosmic order so bound to that ideal as to be willing to overwrite the free will of others in a display of supreme authoritarianism, it was Warcraft’s equivalent of Christianity and the Abrahamic God. Thus, Uther is quite literally answering to the laws of a higher power, the equivalent of God. The tenets of the Holy Light would never condone Arthas’ choice, no matter how pragmatic it might be based on the weighing of numbers and his experience at Hearthglen. He isn’t seeking to try Arthas because “there can’t be two heads in a kingdom.” Rather, Uther’s trying to stop a young man he respected, one who has clearly fallen victim to his own emotions, from pursuing the brutal and corrupting path of vengeance that he was warned against earlier in the story.

The issue with the way the good Brothers portray Uther in their essay is that in so doing they not only misrepresent the character, they also inadvertently undermine the tragedy of Arthas’ fall. They make a similar argument with Jaina, claiming that she’s weak, lacking the courage to do what is right in that moment. To them I would ask, knowing what Jaina knew in that moment, what is the right choice for her to make? Remember, we as players of the game who know the full story are aware that quarantining the plague wouldn’t work because we, like Arthas, have seen evidence to show how it was meant to circumvent that. We likewise learn later that there is no cure for the plague for much the same reason, it’s specifically designed to resist curative magics and alchemy.

However, we don’t get the full picture of this until after the Lordaeron campaign, after the culling and the consequences of Arthas’ actions - as well as the manipulations of the Legion and, later, the Lich King - are fully revealed. In the moment Uther, Jaina, and Arthas are standing outside Stratholme’s gates and make their respective choices, none of them had the foreknowledge of how the plague worked or what the true plan of their enemies was. Uther and Jaina were both unawares of exactly how virulent the plague is at that point. Jaina was with him at Hearthglen at the start, but she never saw how quickly it turned the people there because Arthas sent her away to find Uther so he could bring reinforcements when they learned a swarm of the monsters was making for the town. The people there only started to change after she left.

“I’m surprised that you kept things together as long as you did, lad. If I hadn’t arrived just then-”

“Look, I did the best I could, Uther! If I’d had a legion of knights riding at my back, I would’ve-”

“Now is not the time to be choking on pride! What we faced here was only the beginning. The undead ranks are bolstered every time one of our warriors falls in battle.”

“Then we should strike at their leader! I’ll go to Stratholme and kill Mal’Ganis myself if I have to!”

“Easy, lad. Brave as you are, you can’t hope to defeat a man who commands the dead all by yourself.”

“Then feel free to tag along, Uther. I’m going. With or without you.”
-Uther and Arthas after the battle for Hearthglen,

Would it have been disastrous for them to try and quarantine Stratholme instead of culling it? Yes, it most likely would’ve, but not only is it true that Uther and Jaina were unaware of this fact, it’s also true that Arthas’ plan didn’t work, either. The culling of Stratholme failed. The plague still spread. Arthas still fell, and he fell because of the choices he made beginning with the culling, leading to his relentless pursuit of Mal’Ganis, and culminating in the claiming of the evil runeblade Frostmourne, an action which very nearly got Muradin killed, too. With every choice Arthas makes, he proves that Uther was right to try and stop him. With vengeance first and foremost in his mind, his obsession with slaying Mal’Ganis has taken full hold. Nothing and no one will stand in his way.

Even with that said, it’s equally true that all of these characters attempted to take the best courses of action they could situation they didn’t know was manipulated to be unwinnable. Jaina, unwilling to side with Arthas in what she rightly viewed as the slaughter of innocent people and unable to stomach the idea of attempting to stop him by force because she still very much loved him, gives into despair and returns to the Kirin Tor. Uther, being more stalwart, attempts at first to help Arthas see the abhorrence of his choice, and then tries to lead by example by refusing his order and acting in accordance with the teachings that made him a hero in the first place. And Arthas, driven to desperation by the machinations of a truly horrible enemy in Mal’Ganis and the Burning Legion which he represents, finds himself in a position that no just ruler would ever envy - weighing the lives of his nation’s citizens.

The entire point of situation in Stratholme is no that right answer exists for it. That’s precisely why it’s such a tragic and impactful moment. Mal’Ganis, like most dreadlords, is a master at deception. He manipulates Arthas in such a way that his desperation to protect his people became severe enough for him to not only consider committing an atrocity that wouldn’t even cross his mind at the start of the campaign, but to actually follow through with it. The demon recognized Arthas’ weaknesses and used Kel’thuzad and the Cult of the Damned to expertly play them against him, to the point that even the mentor whom Arthas trusted and loved like a member of his own family couldn’t help him see through the fog of his fears, doubts, pride, and rage.

Uther the Lightbringer wasn’t power hungry. It’s never once shown that he sought to usurp the rule of Lordaeron for himself, nor did he seek to undermine Arthas’ right to rule. He acted based on the tenets of his faith and his position as an arbiter of justice. He recognized that the young man whom he’d hoped would be the kingdom’s next great leader, whom he tried to shape into a bastion of hope for Lordaeron’s people, had been led astray by the machinations of an evil far greater than either of them.

Of course, this doesn’t mean Uther’s a perfect man. Arthas’ fall is a failing on his part, something which he blames himself for in later portions of Arthas’ story, including in WoW’s second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Because he failed to recognize the scope of the evil hiding in their midst in time, he wasn’t able to prevent Arthas from being manipulated and led down his dark path. One could argue that Uther shouldn’t blame himself for this, for the Legion’s machinations were beyond even him, but that doesn’t matter. What matters here is that the character himself doesn’t see it that way. Arthas was his charge, and his charge fell so far from grace that he became the very entity that would destroy their people. The fault, in Uther’s mind, was his own, at least up until the Shadowlands retcons screwed around with parts of his backstory.

If it were true that Uther’s intent was always to usurp rule for himself, if he was truly willing to simply have Arthas killed and cast aside, why would he blame himself for his fall? Why wouldn’t he simply orchestrate a means to have Arthas killed while they were exploring the rural regions of Lordaeron, where he could easily dispose of his body and lay the blame for his death on the hands of the orcs they fought or the undead spawning from the plague? There were plenty of opportunities for Uther to easily have Arthas removed if he so desired. Yet those opportunities were never acted upon, and that’s because his character and actions aren’t what the good Brothers interpreted them to be. Quite how they reached the conclusion that they did, I’m not sure, but when it comes to Uther’s part in the story, their essay marks a rare instance in which their analysis was quite far off the mark.

As a final piece evidence of my argument, I present below a video showcasing the full story of The Scourge of Lordaeron campaign, which I’ve used as my primary reference throughout this essay.

~The Man Behind the Screen

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