In what might be the last (at least for now) of the Chronicle books published by Blizzard, we get a history of the world of Warcraft from the Third War through Cataclysm. That's right, we move past the RTS games and into the areas where our own players have made an impact on the world. There's a bit of controversy surrounding the fact that there are certain instances that have been declared, canonically, the victory of one faction or another. Many are common sense (there's a lot more Horde adventurers near the Wailing Caverns) while others might disappoint or elate you.
Anyway, I'm not here to argue that.
The thing I was perhaps most eager to find out when reading Chronicle III was to learn the exact nature of the Lich King. The official story has always held that when Ner'zhul fled the collapsing Draenor (literally in the moments it was becoming Outland,) he was captured by Kil'jaeden and subsequently tortured as his body was destroyed and his soul was bound to the armor that would be his "body" and later be worn by Arthas, as well as the sword Frostmourne.
From there, the spirit of Ner'zhul practiced necromancy, serving the Legion as Lich King until he could wrest enough control to outmaneuver the Dreadlords sent to hold his leash.
In Chronicle I, we found out that Odyn had made a deal with a powerful entity from the Shadowlands, giving him his eye for knowledge of necromancy so that he could create the Val'kyr, thus creating his undying army of Valarjar (I find it fascinating that this form of necromancy seems perfectly compatible with holy magic. This raises the question: is a priest or paladin who resurrects or redeems a fallen ally technically performing holy necromancy?)
The huge theory - the world-shaking one on part with the theory that Azeroth was a Titan (which was confirmed, of course) - is that it was possible that this entity was, in fact, the Lich King.
After all, the Lich King has always sort of seemed to have one identity too many: Ner'zhul was the first, and then Arthas fused with him. But by killing Arthas, one would think that there was no more real Lich King corrupter to contend with - both Ner'zhul and Arthas were gone. Yet while Bolvar initially billed himself as the Jailor of the Damned - perhaps a new entity that would take the Lich King's place - it now seems as if he has embraced this identity as the Lich King - he even sounds like Arthas did when he was on the Frozen Throne. It's almost as if the Lich King had already existed, and Ner'zhul, Arthas, and now Bolvar were all just different hosts, of a sort, for the Lich King to use as a physical form.
I liked the theory, but I think we're going to have to set it aside, sadly.
The explanation for Ner'zhul's transformation - from duped Shaman to desperate portal-maker into brilliant mastermind manipulator - is that the Lich King grows more powerful as more beings - particularly intelligent beings - are under his command. Ghouls and skeletons don't possess much intellect, and while they serve quite well as foot soldiers, the control of Liches and Death Knights does far more to empower the Lich King. It was this expansion of Ner'zhul's mind that allowed him to outmaneuver the famously devious Nathrezim.
And actually, this could sort of explain the continuity of identity between the three Lich Kings - it may be that while the person who wears the crown (or is the crown, in the case of Ner'zhul) has a great deal of sway, the Lich King may, in fact, really be more of a hive mind - the nexus point of all Scourge thought.
In a bizarre way, this makes the Scourge almost democratic - they are united in will because each individual with enough intelligence to have a will contributes to the very sovereign that commands them. There's something weirdly symbiotic about that. Of course, that collectivism goes both ways, and even if some Death Knight's opinions on one manner or another are taken into account in the Lich King's consciousness, the signal goes back down to the Death Knight, ensuring that dissent is extinguished in the name of a kind of dark consensus. Essentially, it is terribly difficult to resist the collective will of the Scourge once you are made a part of it, and once you submit, your own will becomes part of the collective will that indoctrinates the next victim/recruit. It's like if you had a big pile of magnets - eventually as a couple start to line up, the rest are going to twist around until they all line up. You might toss one in turned so that its polarity is opposite the rest of them, but it will probably be (literally) turned to the direction of the others, and now its own magnetic force will reinforce the very polarity that pointed it in that direction.
Now imagine that North over South is Good and South over North is Evil. With enough evil, everything gets turned to evil, but likewise, with enough good, the whole of the Scourge would turn toward good.
The Knights of the Ebon Blade had their "magnetic" connection severed, allowing them to make their own decisions, but also preventing them from influencing the will of the Scourge. Of course, the Scourge was so massive that even such powerful individuals as the Ebon Blade Death Knights probably could not have exerted much influence - and even then, the feedback loop of consensus breeding greater fervor for the Scourge's general MO - i.e. murder and mayhem - really had the larger effect of making the Ebon Blade knights into killing machines.
But that raises some interesting questions about the modern Scourge:
First off, as the one with the crown, Bolvar presumably has a privileged degree of influence on the mind of the Lich King. He also seems to be gradually reabsorbing the Ebon Blade into the Scourge - the Death Knight campaign begins with the Knights generally distrusting the Lich King but willing to engage in a strategic alliance, but by the end of it, the Deathlord (i.e. you) is referred to by Darion Mograine as "the Lich King's Champion."
But what if that's a good thing?
Let's imagine that the war in Northrend actually depleted the Scourge to a fraction of its former size - Arthas was probably willing to give up a lot of his troops, as once he secured the heroes of Azeroth to be his champions, it would be trivial to slay and raise new subjects. But Arthas winds up being miraculously (literally) defeated, meaning that all the sacrifices the Scourge made to lure the champions up to the Frozen Throne only succeeded in shrinking their numbers.
From there, Bolvar, who seems to have very different motivations from a post-brainwash Arthas, takes the Throne, and having proved his own remarkable will, starts to change the sort of mental polarity of the Scourge. There's little enough of a pushback (after the destruction of so much of the Scourge) and Bolvar is strong enough of will that he manages to change the character of the Scourge. Now, he's not totally unaffected - he does develop a seriously cruel streak - but he has realigned the Scourge against total global domination.
And now he's seeking to incorporate the Ebon Blade back into the Scourge. Why?
To bolster his happier, friendlier Scourge. If the Scourge is a hive mind, then presumably adding more heroic minds to the mix would, with sufficient saturation and sufficient haste, shift the Scourge into a more heroic entity. The Scourge that Arthas inherited had been an instrument of the Burning Legion, and had not much earlier been in a state where it needed to expand constantly in order to survive (and the Legion was happy to have it expand indefinitely like a cancer, even if it burned out after consuming its host, aka the living world.) That message was on something of a feedback loop, and only through the efforts of very strong will did it shift from that nature - Ner'zhul was able to direct it toward more subtle actions and Arthas forced it to act strategically. But it took the shock of losing a huge number of its forces as well as seeing Arthas killed for the hive mind to truly reset into something malleable.
But even if Bolvar was able to exert a great deal of control over the Scourge, there were still enough intelligent beings in the hive mind that were still set to the old ways. Bolvar demonstrated tremendous will to resist the mental current toward apocalyptic violence, but now, perhaps, he's looking to get others who have a more altruistic and, you know, non-apocalyptic ambition into the system to keep the flow heading in a more productive direction.
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