Afterlives: Bastion dropped today, and boy is it a doozy.
The animated shorts that have been coming with each expansion since Mists of Pandaria are a showcase of Blizzard storytelling - while the game does a pretty good job of showing us what happens (though sometimes major events are only heard about) the Blizzard cinematic team is often seen as their MVPs, giving the Warcraft cosmos a truly epic feel.
We knew that Uther would be a soul we encountered in Bastion - while theoretically every dead NPC in the Warcraft cosmos (give or take those who went elsewhere than the Shadowlands after death - I don't know where Kil'jaeden is, for example, or even if he still is anywhere) should be there somewhere, we knew that each of the four major leveling zones we'd go to would have familiar faces, and as the classically heavenly realm for those whose life was dedicated to selfless duty, it made sense for Uther to wind up in Bastion.
But, as we see in Afterlives: Bastion, there's a hitch.
Uther dedicated himself to the Light. He was the most righteous and selfless figure in the Alliance, and was the very first of the Knights of the Silver Hand. As a paladin, he dedicated himself to the protection of his people, but also to the cause of Justice. For Uther, he felt that good could only be protected if evil was punished, and retribution was part of the equation of justice.
As the original paladin of the Silver Hand, it made sense for him to train Arthas Menethil in the ways of the Holy Light - the prospect of empowering a future king from a family known for its mercy and even-handedness (after all, it had been Arthas' father who proposed keeping the Orcs alive, rather than slaughtering them en masse) made total sense, and Arthas was a young man of heroic tendencies and righteous conviction.
Interesting, then, that all that was shattered due to the Scourge, which we now know to be bound to the power of the Maw.
The Scourge was a threat the likes of which no one had faced in ten thousand years. The Horde was, certainly, a deadly foe, but they were still people that could be defeated and imprisoned. The Horde was misguided, and empowered by demonic magic, but as a people, they were not irredeemable. Yet the Scourge was simultaneously insidious and outrageous. It was spread like a plague, hidden in tainted food, and the very people fighting it could be raised in its service - basically, any battle lost against it meant a double victory for the Scourge.
Uther had instilled in Arthas a notion of justice - that evil called for retribution. It was not merely enough to safeguard the innocent. A Paladin's job was to destroy the wicked.
And it was that lesson that was Arthas' downfall.
Arthas' first really questionable act was the Culling of Stratholme, in which he slew innocent people in an attempt to prevent them from rising as Scourge. This act was too far for Uther, but there was a kind of cold practicality that, while not very righteous, was not necessarily the wrong call - perhaps, had Arthas not fallen to darkness, the effects of the Culling might have saved Lordaeron.
Indeed, Arthas' act of culling Stratholme might have ended the Scourge in Lordaeron, at least for a time. But he insisted on following Mal'ganis' taunts and journeying to Northrend. He could not let Mal'ganis escape justice - that was what Uther had taught him.
Arthas' soul was torn from him when he took up Frostmourne, and we saw how he lost any sense of empathy or remorse. The Lich King was able to whisper to him, push him toward murder. We may not really understand how much of Arthas' act of patricide was directly commanded by the Lich King and how much it was something inherent to him, but either way, the Arthas that committed that act, and all the great sins that followed, was at best, only a part of him.
For nearly a decade, Arthas ruled the Scourge as Lich King. And countless heinous acts were committed in his name and at his command.
But this was the broken Arthas - the Arthas that had torn out his own heart to free himself from any vestige of a conscience. It was the broken Arthas who slew his father, and then, in an act of symbolic patricide, also slew Uther.
As we saw, Frostmourne did not only claim his life, but it wounded his soul. A part of it was torn away, absorbed by the blade. Meaning that what arrived in Bastion was, in fact, a broken Uther.
Uther had not expected Bastion. As Light-like as Bastion seems, it wasn't quite the same. He had meant to continue his service, fighting evil and dispensing justice. But to simply become some ferryman for the dead - this didn't seem right to him.
When Arthas finally fell at the top of Icecrown Citadel, Frostmourne was shattered. We don't know precisely what happened to his soul - did it return to his body? Was he made whole again, just before his life slipped away?
And if that's the case, the man who died at the top of that pillar of ice was not purely the evil death knight who had slaughtered his people, his father, and Uther. It was also the idealistic, misguided, but ultimately well-intentioned avenger of the Light. It was the boy who had been taught by the most righteous man in the world that Justice Demands Retribution.
Devos, moved by what Uther saw, was also frustrated by the inaction of the Archon. She hastily empowered Uther before he was ready, giving him the strength and wings of the Kyrian. And she pushed him to take his vengeance.
Claiming Arthas' soul at the moment of his death, Devos called Uther to toss Arthas directly into the Maw - no judgment, no analysis, and no time to think over what they were doing.
Pushed to this deed by Devos, and missing a part of his soul - perhaps the part of his soul capable of forgiveness - Uther dropped Arthas' soul into the Maw, calling it Justice.
But is this justice? Was Arthas truly irredeemable? Isn't it possible that Arthas' soul had just moments earlier escaped the prison that was Frostmourne, only to be condemned to the most hellish realm of the Shadowlands?
Matters of afterlife retribution are generally left to gods, but the Warcraft cosmos is one where it's unlikely there is any true arbiter of good and evil - if there is one, it might be the Arbiter, though the presence of Uther in Bastion seems like a mistake. It's pretty clear that Devos and Uther did not have the moral authority to condemn Arthas.
And was this breach, taking the Light's Justice into his own hands, the greatest sin Uther has ever committed? Is he, now, after a life of such righteousness, tainted by evil? Indeed, his soul was wounded before this act. Could that be what drove him to take this action? And can his soul be healed?
Let's talk about the Light.
The Shadowlands exist outside the Light and the Void, we think. All beings in the Shadowlands - beautiful and good or creepy and maybe evil - use death magic, powered by anima.
Followers of the Light look to be taken into the Light after death, much as someone in our world who believes in something like heaven expects to be welcomed into holy glory. Bastion is... sort of like that, but it's certainly not what Uther had in mind.
We've seen someone taken into the Light at death - Crusader Bridenbrad, who was literally carried up into the Light by A'dal. Does this act mean that Bridenbrad's soul never went to the Shadowlands? Did he become a Naaru, or perhaps did he simply merge with the Light, his own individual identity extinguished while his consciousness become one with the light of the universe?
Become one with the Light would mean that one could still serve the purpose of the Light - if you are there when a paladin channels the light to smite a wicked foe, you might still feel you are doing your holy work, just in a different way. I imagine Uther thought this would be his fate.
As Uther dies, he prays to the Light to save his soul.
Did the Light answer?
We don't know precisely what happens to a soul when Frostmourne slays the body, except in the case of Uther. In the short, we see as it is split in two, a golden half is sucked into Frostmourne while a ghostly blue one is taken up by the Kyrians.
Is it possible that the Light is what split it?
In his prayer, when he called upon the Light, did he initiate a tug-of-war between the Light and the evil magic of Frostmourne? And was the result a division of his soul?
The Light, as we know, generally serves righteous purposes, but also doesn't seem to be a really conscious entity itself - it can be wielded through loopholes and even a Naaru can engage in an evil act so long as it thinks it is doing the right thing (as X'era did when she tried to brainwash/dominate Illidan.) So doesn't it seem possible that Uther called upon its power, and the power wound up doing something very bad to him?
Uther's soul being damaged by Frostmourne is something I can totally accept as part of the lore, but that splitting might have been the doing of the Light.
And in so doing, it might have robbed Uther of his better moral judgment - he was left his righteous anger, but what of his capacity for mercy and forgiveness?
I have not yet played through any of the covenant campaigns. I'm stuck on a bugged quest roughly half or two thirds of the way through Ardenweald that I need to complete to continue the full story (I'm so eager to see Revendreth, guys). But I have the following predictions for future plots in this expansion.
I think we're going to find some way to redeem Uther, and reckon with his affiliation with the Forsworn. I think we might have to recover the piece of his soul that Frostmourne tore out, and I think that by merging Uther with his other half, literally making him whole, we'll give him the peace he deserves.
I think that we're going to find Arthas in the Maw, and I think we're going to have to find him the afterlife he actually deserves (maybe Revendreth?)
And I think there's no way we just reset the Shadowlands to the way things worked before.
No comments:
Post a Comment