Today I decided I was unsatisfied with my Death Knight's transmog set and decided to work on putting together a different one. I settled on the 25N/10H version of tier 10 (the blue one,) but with the helmet turned off - honestly, I've never really found a helmet that looks right on my DK (he's a Draenei,) except perhaps the third Wrath PvP one or the cowl you start with in Acherus.
Anyway, I was going up through Icecrown Citadel to collect Marks of Sanctification. Annoyingly, the only way to get this coloration of gear is to get the marks, because if you do the raid on normal 25, you get Warrior-style plate for both tanking and DPS pieces, and if you do it on heroic 10, you for some reason get the purple/green coloration. So I honestly don't think there's a way to get boots or a belt that share the look of this set, but oh well.
The point is: It got me all nostalgic about the Scourge.
The Scourge are hands-down my favorite villains from the Warcraft universe. The Scourge felt like a huge threat - partially because of the groundwork that had been laid in Warcraft III and Vanilla, but also just because the concept was so strong. An undead army made up of your own former allies. And all led by Arthas Menethil, a guy who, had it not been for the Scourge, probably would have grown up to be an immensely popular king who didn't have all the baggage Varian carries with him.
And while Ner'zhul was the original Lich King, the Scourge mostly felt independent of the whole Alliance/Horde conflict. The Scourge really felt like it could take on the whole of Azeroth and win, and it did up until the point that Tirion Fordring broke out of that pillar of ice. Given the recent rumors, I've been talking a lot about Azshara and how she's perhaps the most powerful person on Azeroth, but honestly I think that at his height, the Lich King may have been greater still. And Bolvar, as the new Lich King, could become just that, if it weren't for his restraint (which is of course why there's not a zombie apocalypse throughout Azeroth at the moment.)
The question is: Can we ever see a Scourge resurgent, and if so, should we?
The first part is easy to answer - Yes. This is fantasy, and while good fantasy will try to stick to its established rules, Warcraft's main rule is "If it's cool, it can happen." The folks at Blizzard wanted us to face down the original Warlords of the Horde, and they made it happen with a combination of time travel and parallel universes. And the entire finale of Wrath was clearly written to leave themselves a door that they could open again upon the Scourge.
There's no reason, narratively, that Arthas' death couldn't be followed by an epilogue of the Argent Crusade tearing the Frozen Throne down, and all the undead of the Scourge either regaining their souls, Forsaken-style, or dropping to the ground, inanimate.
But they chose to maintain that the Lich King had already become an intractable entity - something that must always be, to hold the reins of the massive Scourge forces. And while Bolvar proved himself quite resilient and possessed of great willpower over a full year of torture, there's always the possibility that he'll lose the struggle - either falling to evil or being deposed by some Scourgelord who wants the throne for him/her/itself. The Scourge is explicitly still a thing, and so it's not unthinkable that we'd encounter them once again.
So should we?
Well, that depends on what you think should ultimately happen with the Warcraft narrative. Is it a fantasy series, like a set of novels? Often when those go on for too long, they start to collapse under their own weight. On the other hand, one could think of it like a comic book universe. The Joker has been troubling Batman for 75 years now, but we've seen many very different variations on the character (compare Cesar Romero's portrayal to Heath Ledger's.) Do we want a Warcraft Universe where when we deal with a threat, they're dealt with permanently? Or do we want them sent to Arkham Asylum, as it were, to cool off a bit until we're ready for them to cause trouble again?
And I don't really have a definitive opinion on that. I do like the Scourge, though.
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