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Just sitting around bored and decided to watch the Icecrown citadel ending cinematic, and it reminded me at just how ominous Bolvar's fate is. I don't care how "pure" Bolvar is, to me they're setting him up to be a major antagonist in the future.

Bolvar seemed so insistent on becoming the new Lich King, to an extent it appeared unhealthy. He said it'd be his last act of service, before becoming some tyrannical, power-hungry abomination of death and evil no doubt.

There just hasn't been any evidence of character's being given such incredible power (Arthas, Illidan, Deathwing, Sargeras) without severe consequences, and I doubt some random NPC which was originally a throwaway character with 0 importance to warcraft lore except one quest some how has the mental fortitude to escape the corruption of something as demonic as the Helm of Domination.

"Bolvar" already told Tirion to say that the Lich King and Bolvar is dead, he could be implying that what we knew as Bolvar, or even the man himself no longer exists.

Now surely if Bolvar isn't an antagonist and controls the scourge, why couldn't he just make them do something such as run them all off a cliff like a hunter-gatherer would with a herd of mammoths? Or line them up to be slaughtered?

I don't even think that its Bolvar anymore, but what he has been replaced by I don't know. I'm presuming he has been replaced or at least is controlled by a somehow still existing Ner'Zhul? That's the only way I could explain it, as Arthas is without a doubt gone.

Maybe he hasn't got the required controll to make them all commit suicide... then again, if he can't do that, then how could he be holding them back from going berserk?

I think the whole ''there must always be a lich king'' bit is total crap anyway, but I do agree he's totally being set up to be Arthas 2.0.

Agreed with OP. Bolvar might still be there, kinda, maybe, somewhat, but there's no doubt in my mind that so is the evil of the Lich King. I'm not sure if the remnant that merged with Bolvar was Ner'zhul, Arthas, both of them, or simply the inherent evil within the Helm of Domination - but he ain't the same guy anymore.

Will he go bad? Time will tell I assume, but for now, he seems to have lapsed into the same sort of slumber that held Arthas/Ner'zhul for 7 years.

13/06/2012 19:46Posted by Kungar

I think the whole ''there must always be a lich king'' bit is total crap anyway, but I do agree he's totally being set up to be Arthas 2.0.

I do not see why people see it as crap. It all makes sense. There must always be a Lich King, yes. Otherwise the scourge would run rampant. This means that Arthas did not release the full might of the scourge, a rather disturbing notion.

After all, the scourge is the perfect army. A constantly self-reinforcing, incredibly demoralising and fearless army.

13/06/2012 21:49Posted by Ashiraya

I think the whole ''there must always be a lich king'' bit is total crap anyway, but I do agree he's totally being set up to be Arthas 2.0.

I do not see why people see it as crap. It all makes sense. There must always be a Lich King, yes. Otherwise the scourge would run rampant. This means that Arthas did not release the full might of the scourge, a rather disturbing notion.

After all, the scourge is the perfect army. A constantly self-reinforcing, incredibly demoralising and fearless army.

When I heard "there must always be a Lich King", I could only think of one thing.

"The Dutchman must always have a captain..."

For some reason, I feel that the scene was inspired by Pirates of the Carribean.

we must not forget, bolivar is a human, and as we know, humans is the most weekminded race in lore, i dont think he will last long before going into madnes.

I do not see why people see it as crap. It all makes sense. There must always be a Lich King, yes. Otherwise the scourge would run rampant. This means that Arthas did not release the full might of the scourge, a rather disturbing notion.

After all, the scourge is the perfect army. A constantly self-reinforcing, incredibly demoralising and fearless army.

I still refuse to buy it, because no, I don't think it makes any sense.

With their master slain, they may become rampant, yes. But also mindless, and leaderless. The more intelligent Scourge seem to have always regained free will when their master has been weakened. The Val'kyr were lost, the Forsaken were lost. Basically everyone capable of raising new Scourge are then gone, and we are left with nothing but mindless zombies that will attack enemy bases at random, without coordination and without tactics. How would a foe such as this suddenly become more dangerous to combat, I wonder? With their source gone, I would think they could then just simply be... wiped out. For good.

If the Alliance and Horde joined forces they could wipe the Scourge out completely fairly quickly.However with recent events and of course Theramore thats unlikely to happen.This could be a mistake?

As the Scourge will be hanging around until Bolvar comes out of his trance (or whatever is happening to him right now) or the next demon invasion (where they will quickly retake control of the scourge to use as an army against the Horde and Alliance) and it will start all over again!

Surely there must be some plot with this lich king thing and may include involvement with other characters such as Illidan prehaps? mabye an old god? sargeas ? sylvanas? Who knows...

I'd have to disagree with the OP here, as I feel you're bending the cinematic to fit you're own theory, without considering the character we're talking about...

In what way was his request to don the helm of domination unhealthy?? Bolvar was a character who held ideals such as loyalty, service and brotherhood close to his heart.. his "last act of service" was what he saw to be the only choice. He was literally being burned alive after enduring months of torture, he was a deformed monster by most peoples standards, but he still held his ideals and mind intact, and so he saw himself as the only person viable to take the crown. He had a sense of honour that made him realise he was the one who would HAVE to do it, as he could not see another take on the great punishment in his place.. he knew it was his fate

Also, Bolvar's sacrifice was one of the pinnacle moments of human storytelling in WoW.. a HUMAN making a sacrifice to save Azeroth, theres something Blizzard couldn't even think about in Cataclysm. It also directly spits in the face of people such as Kego who see all humans as "weak minded" just because of the actions of one...they're not.. look at Illidan and use that logic and you can say Night elves are weak minded ... I thought not., or how about we look at Grom Hellscream, yeah now the orcs are weak-minded. Point proven?

Anyway, Arthas destroyed all remnants of Ner'zhul in the crown during the book "Arthas" so there is no force left in there to corrupt him (that we know of). And Bolvar's strength with the light should tell us that he is stronger than most posters here seem to think... he didn't survive MONTHS of torture with an easy one word way to get out, (which would mean betraying his own sense of loyalty and honour) just to then see the crown and go "I have an idea...!" It just doesn't fit with his character at all...

Yes, they will use Bolvar as a future plot device, that I'm sure of.. but as an antagonist?? If Blizz do that then I know theres no point caring about WoW lore, if characters can do a complete 180 in terms of personality at the snap of their fingers. Bolvar was a shining example of what all paladins should aspire to be, resisting horrible torture to stick to his beliefs in the light and honour, that doesn't sound like an Arthas clone to me ... Bolvar is much wiser. Arthas was corrupted due to his single-minded nature about vengence and doing what he believed was right, in theory he was one of the weakest paladins Azeroth has known, due to the simpleness of his corruption. We must also remember there is no frostmourne to corrupt Bolvar, whereas there was for Arthas..

Why did Bolvar's voice change? We dont know yet, Where would he stand in terms of factions? We'll find out, but Alliance or neutral he would not turn evil, not the character we saw die at the Wrathgate anyway?

What part does Bolvar play in the future? To find that out we'll have to wait and see....

I do think Bolvar may become evil, as the poster above me said, Arthas destroyed Ner'zhul, but he also destroyed Arthas, that is, his good side, as seen through Mathias Lehner in Icecrown. The Lich King got rid of Ner'zhul and "Arthas" becoming singley: Arthas, the Lich King. Kill off Arthas and what remains? The Lich King.

The Helm of Domination is an inherently evil object, created by Kil'jaeden and used to create an army of the dead. The single most powerful source of necromantic magics in the known Great Dark Beyond. The Helm IS going to invade his mind, relentlessly, no matter his faith(although he didn't seem like a faithful person when he appeared in Icecrown Citadel, what with the being burned alive and having been tortured by one of the most manevolent entities in existence, that IS going to dampen you're hope in humanity), he WILL inevitabley succumb to it. It's only a matter of time, or whether or not Blizzard decides to do it...

15/06/2012 00:58Posted by Alganar

Yes, they will use Bolvar as a future plot device, that I'm sure of.. but as an antagonist?? If Blizz do that then I know theres no point caring about WoW lore, if characters can do a complete 180 in terms of personality at the snap of their fingers.

Couple of problems with that:

15/06/2012 00:58Posted by Alganar

at the snap of their fingers.

It is hardly at the snap of his fingers if he is being corrupted by an unbelievably powerful and evil helm, an object that is physically and magically encompassing his head, it is going to find a way in and start doing its thing, ie. Being evil. This may happen over however many years, a couple of years has already passed since WotLK and pretty soon MoP will be out and that will be another couple of years passed, it may be yet another one or two expansions until Bolvar gives in.

and:

15/06/2012 00:58Posted by Alganar

do a complete 180 in terms of personality

I don't believe he's doing a 180 in terms of personality, in the sense that whoever the evil Bolvar is, he isn't the same guy as good Bolvar. Think of the Arthas book, in it there was three entities in the helm, odd isn't it, seeing as there was only Arthas' soul and Ner'zhul's soul. There was: Arthas: the Lich King, Ner'zhul and "Arthas(good)" until Arthas: the Lich King kicked out Ner'zhul and "Arthas(good)". Following this same principle, one could assume that there is now two entities in the helm, Bolvar: the Lich King and "Bolvar(good)". And yes, the good Bolvar may hold out a long time: No Ner'zhul, more pure than Arthas, no previous Frostmourne corruption; but time means nothing to an inevitability. The simple matter of the thing is that Bolvar: the Lich King is an entity, a being, never tiring and never halting; while good Bolvar remains throughout it all: a human, no matter how pure(and dragon firey) he is still a human, a wavering, faltering, corruptable human.

That's how I see it anyway.

You could be right, but one thing I can't get past is you are also using this "corruptable human" logic, which imho is complete bullcrap. Sure, we see Arthas corrupted due to his desperation to serve his people, but that does not mean he represents an entre race. Some of the most pious figures have been humans, just look at the likes of Uther. Sure, some may be corruptable, and some may be evil, but that is the same for EVERY race, even the draenei, who's weaker brothers succumbed to evil powers and became the eredar.

There is also NO evidence that there is even another entity in the helm. Sure, its an evil helm, of course it is, but just because it's evil does not mean it has a mind of its own. You seem to be missing the point of WHY ner'zhul used Frostmourne to get to Arthas. Frostmourne was the item that took Arthas, his mind and soul, and corrupted him. The helmet of Domination's purpose is to CONTROL the scourge, that's why ner'zhul was bound to it. There was never any evidence that the helmet itself could corrupt, as when Arthas put on the helm, his mind fused with NZ's ("Now, WE are ONE") but as there is no other entity inside the helm now, how could it corrupt Bolvar? The thing that corrupted Arthas was NZ's whisperings through Frostmourne, the helm wasn't even involved, infact the helm had nothing to do with Arthas' corruption. Him putting on the helm symbolised his fusion with NZ to become the LK, and him adopting the power of taking over the scourge,thats all.

And just saying that Bolvar "didnt look very faithful" as he was sitting there as a burned husk doesn't really help your argument, as Im pretty sure you dont have to be looking fabulous all the time to be a paladin. If anything, it only helps mine, as it was his very connection and obedience to the light that made him go through the torture that turned him into the deformed monster he was, without breaking his spirit. He DIDNT lose faith in humanity, and thats the idea of why he survived, to show that there are people pious and devout enough not to be simply broken.

Sure, there may be a "Bolvar Lich King" somewhere in there, but thats inside all of us, and as we know he can overcome his darker side, and that's why I strongly doubt he can even turn evil, as unless KJ decided to pop Hogger's spirit in the helm without telling us, Bolvars only fighting against his own evils, something we ALL do, rather than some other spirit, as even the helm itself has no capacity to corrupt

You seem to be missing the point of WHY ner'zhul used Frostmourne to get to Arthas. Frostmourne was the item that took Arthas, his mind and soul, and corrupted him.

Arthas had been 'gotten to' by the Lich King far before that. He wasn't directly puppeteering him before this point, true, but he was stringing him along on a path of increasing madness. By the time Arthas picked up that blade, he was already mad beyond any point of reasoning - going so far to sacrifice mercenaries to the fury of his own soldiers, and telling his life-long friend Muradin Bronzebeard, that not even he would dissuade Arthas from his plans... which were the Lich Kings plans, in truth.

Frostmourne simply sealed the deal.

As for Bolvar... I suspect he might become somewhat of an undead gambit to be played out against the Burning Legion if (tsh.. when) we finally deal with them. I doubt he'll be the same happy, fluffy Bolvar that he was in life, but I don't think he'll go pure evil either. He's too iron willed for that.

Alliance and Horde will ask Scourge's assistance to defeat a Super Huge Demon invasion and beat them with their own weapon.

Aragorn and the undead army all over again.

In some quests in EPL, it is said new "generals" are trying to take control of the scourge. Also the cult seems to be able to resist Bolvar and just has their own little plans.

Why?

Bolvar is pretty new to this job, he still needs time to learn how to controll this new abilities. Don't forget Ner'zhul had to learn his abilities first aswell, and so did Arthas (it took him quite some years, even though he had Ner'zhul as mentor).

And I doubt the Scourge can be wiped out so easily, there are still some powerful lieutenants and cultists on the run.

14/06/2012 00:55Posted by Milhindor

Basically everyone capable of raising new Scourge are then gone, and we are left with nothing but mindless zombies that will attack enemy bases at random

The Plague hasn't been forgotten.

Well as you have pointed out it seems like he is being set up to be a bad guys, but then on the other hand when blizzard "set something up" they don't plan it on forhand they just use the hand of RETCON!
Well, anyways i hope that he doesn't become a new lich king since, well he is just so awesome.

why couldn't they just let him die a "honorable" death in combat perhaps slaughtering a billion scourge and then suffocate from the gigantic pile of zombies on him?

He'll be bent to Kil'jaeden's will when the legion return to Azeroth, he'll check in on his pet Nuzzy, find Bolvar, force him to release the scourge as a minor weapon in a very boring raid.

Heard it here first!

There will not be a other lich king quest and war. if they want to do it they neew to remake northland and the rest of the world to make again attacks and they need to change the zone levels. and then they have to make a other land to level up for level 68-80. and that all cost to much time.