Was Arthas Right To Purge Stratholme?

So with Arthas being sent into the Maw let's examine some of his worst initial crimes that led him to that path, the Culling of Stratholme. This really was the first monstrous act by Arthas that forced Jaina and Uther to abandon him. But how bad was it really, was it just pure evil or a choice where you are damned either way? So was Arthas right to purge Stratholme? I'd like to thank Ridge for sponsoring this video, they've sent me the wallet and I've used it for a month now, you can fit 12 cards in, cash on the side and it is so much more sleek and practical than the old giant wallet I've had There are over 30 colors and styles including carbon fiber and burnt titanium.

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Stratholme was not a town it was a city, a large city and the second most populous settlement of the Kingdom of Lordaeron only matched by the Capital. It was a strategic position for the control of the entire region and it was also a very busy, high traffic area, meaning traders, as well as citizens, constantly went in and out.

This means that it was a hard place to contain. Additionally, Stratholme was important as it was a settlement filled with holy sites and it was the place where the Knights of the Silver Hand formed, thus being sacred for the paladins. So Arthas and his forces were figuring out that this plague is really bad, it isn't just some localized problem and having faced off his own citizens turned zombies he realized what this could do.

He also knew due to the shipment in Andorhal how fast it can spread which no doubt traumatized him to an extent and created this sense of urgency. Now Arthas arrives with his soldiers, paladins, Uther and Jaina and at the gates of the city they figure out that Stratholme has been infected which almost immediately prompts Arthas to entirely purge the city.

Uther and Jaina are completely shocked and a large portion of the army abandons him but Arthas goes in and does what needs to be done. Let's examine this point as it is a good one, a crucial one and most criticise Arthas for having made this terrible decision so quickly, was he really right to do so? Here's the thing Arthas had faced this before but on a much smaller scale and he saw how quickly people turned, he knew that they didn't have the time for other solutions and really when we examine it from this point they really didn't have the time to do so.

A good argument is that later during the siege of Dalaran the mages of Kirin Tor had developed a system of magic that damages only the undead and they don't affect the humans and this would definitely help the city but the reality is that there was really no time for this.

It is likely that the mages developed this after and the entire strategy of Ner'Zhul and the plague was literally blitz warfare, non-stop shock across all point of the front so that the defenders can't catch a breath. Kel'Thuzad literally developed this network for years, he established a fake religion, he got followers in the right places so that when these fires went out they would all go at once so that the army would never have enough time to react accordingly, to do research and to make an intelligent decision.

Also, this plague of undeath is something the humans faced off for the first time ever in history, additionally, it was also very emotional as loved ones would turn into zombies and attack their own family so this would also spark a lot of anger and emotional thinking.

So my opinion was that there really was nothing Arthas could do. A lot of people would say he could have quarantined the city and there are 2 ways to go about it so let's examine that. In the first scenario, they could have literally blocked the city and not allowed anyone out.

This, in my opinion, would be an even worse scenario as at least in the purge they killed them and they had a clean death where they didn't turn into zombies but the quarantine would guarantee that all citizens would turn into Scourge slaves. Sure the citizens wouldn't be killed by their army but they would be hacked to pieces by undead monstrosities so, in my opinion, this isn't a much better alternative.

Now the second scenario is that they could have quarantined the place and let the select people out but this also wasn't possible realistically because the plague was so new, it wasn't studied they didn't know with absolute certainty what were the signs so while they could have saved some lives on the other side those survivors could turn into zombies and they could attack the army, the army would turn as well and then Lordaeron would lose their main line of defence and now all other cities would fall.

So the reality is that Arthas made the hard choice and took on this terrible responsibility on himself. He definitely didn't enjoy it and when he and his soldiers had to put an end to young and the old the ones that weren't even defending themselves it damn near drove him insane.

Seeing as Stratholme was a very large city if he didn't kill the people himself all of them would turn into the zombies and at that point, they could literally overrun the army as only a portion of the forces were present at the gates of the city. If the army was overrun then the Scourge would get even larger and Lordaeron would fall faster.

Now from the perspective of a paladin, this was an even worse scenario because this was where the order of knights of the silver hand was formed, holy sites were here, this was literally the bastion of the paladin order. For this reason, Uther couldn't do anything but I do feel like he knew this had to be done but he didn't have the guts himself.

Because if he was really so much against this he could have attempted to stop Arthas along with his paladins. So in a way, it was brave for Arthas to take on this terrible burden upon himself that would brand his as a monster. When we look at this realistically Stratholme was really a no-win scenario and it is obvious that the Scourge planned it that way because while the city was a strategical location it was also a test for Arthas as he was hand-picked by Ner'Zhul.

They forced him to break his own personality and his limits and to take on this burden. Now with this burden, he was emotional and was dead set on revenge and that is exactly what they wanted. As they broke his boundaries he would go more and more crazy and would do anything to get revenge.

His line of thinking was I purged an entire city of women and children to get to Mal'Ganis would it really be so bad if I had to kill the mercenaries and burn the ships as well. So it was obviously a slippery slope that later got him to take on Frostmourne and then with the sword the young prince was completely lost and now he was just a completely different character.

Ultimately my opinion is that Arthas was right to purge the city. I'm not saying that it wasn't a terrible thing to do or monstrous but there really were no feasible alternatives. This entire thing was literally set by the Scourge so that the humans would have no choice.

However, after that, he shouldn't have fallen to emotional thinking and he shouldn't have been so set on revenge. However, the masterminds of the Lich King were obviously well versed in humans, especially the dreadlords so they knew how to push certain buttons and get results which is why they set up that entire scenario in the first place.