The Lich King's Defeat: How Surprising was the Surprise Ending?

Recently, I killed the Lich King. I read on a forum somewhere that whatever guild killed Arthas for their first time, gave points to Blizzard for the "twist ending." At first I agreed, Wrath of the Lich King was an exemplary piece of storytelling I thought. A lot of people I talked to in-game seemed to believe that, yes, this twist ending was, in fact, fucking awesome.

But then I wondered. Was that really a surprise ending?

First, let's look at what happened. You came in through the Borean Tundra or Howling Fjord, battled your way north through the Dragonblight and/or Grizzly Hills, Zul'Drak, Storm Peaks, and Icecrown, you discovered the secrets of Ulduar, and you've fought your way into Icecrown, through the Lower Spire, the Plagueworks, the Crimson and Frostwing Halls. Now you're DPSing/Tanking/Healing, dodging defiles, killing Val'kyrs, and not getting blown up by Vile Spirits long enough for the Lich King to finally kneel down and you see the debuff pass on your screen (if you don't have scrolling combat text on, you're insane), and then you die. Here's what you get to watch.

The Lich King's Gambit: It Was His Plan All Along.

The Lich King casts Fury of Frostmourne, killing all players at once.
The Lich King yells: No question remains unanswered. No doubts linger. You are Azeroth's greatest champions! You overcame every challenge I laid before you. My mightiest servants have fallen before your relentless onslaught, your unbridled fury... Is it truly righteousness that drives you? I wonder.
The Lich King yells: You trained them well, Fordring. You delivered the greatest fighting force this world has ever known... right into my hands -- exactly as I intended. You shall be rewarded for your unwitting sacrifice.
The Lich King begins to cast a resurrection spell.
The Lich King yells: Watch now as I raise them from the dead to become masters of the Scourge. They will shroud this world in chaos and destruction. Azeroth's fall will come at their hands -- and you will be the first to die.
The Lich King laughs.
The Lich King yells: I delight in the irony.
(from wowwiki)

So! It turns out, after all that hard work trying to defeat him, it turns out every rotting zombie you cleaved, every Coldflame you dodged, and the Argent Tournamet, all of it, every thing that you did, including stepping on to the Frozen Throne and nearly killing the Lich King himself, it was his plan all along.

It's true: in order to defeat the Lich King, you have to pretty badass in game. Even now, with Hellscream's Warsong/Strength of Wrynn buff, there are still players who have not defeated him, and if you ask me, he is the hardest boss in the game, far and away harder than anything else in Icecrown Citadel. So, it turns out, that all those challenges were set before us to test our mettle, so that when the time came (and it did), he would raise us up into his most powerful and horrific weapon yet, ensuring that Azeroth fell completely. All of your efforts, they were almost all for nothing, because you were just a pawn in the greater game. Shocking and unexpected, right?

Wrong.

He Told Us His Plan Repeatedly.

Let's go back to the very first thing anybody ever heard not just from Arthas, but about Wrath of the Lich King at all. The very first trailer that was unveiled at Blizzcon, way back in 2007. It is narrated by Arthas himself. And what does he say?

"It's begun. Young heroes...I was once like you. You have come to this place seeking to bring judgement upon the damned. You will venture deep into forgotten lands. You will see wonders beyond imagining. But be warned. The land itself will rise up against you. Long forgotten terrors will smother your courage. Sacrifice everything as the final darkness falls...in the end, all that awaits you is death. Only then will you understand - you've been following in my footsteps all along. So come then, you heroes! Come in all your power and glory! For in the final hour, all must serve the one... true... king. "
(wowwiki again)

We've been following in his footsteps - just as the trailer shows a paladin being overwhelmed by Scourge, and rising up as- surprise- a death knight. Now originally, I just took this as him planning to kill us and raise us as Scourge. Pretty standard procedure.

But think of all the other times you encounter Arthas personally. In Drak'Tharon Keep, in Zul'Drak, where he says:

The Lich King says: As for you...
The Lich King says: I spare your insignificant life as a reward for this amusing betrayal. There may yet be a shred of potential in you.
The Lich King says: Be warned...
The Lich King says: When next we meet I shall require much more to justify your life.
(wowwiki).

He shows up several times in Icecrown, after you defeat the Vrykul Overlord Balargarde we get:

The Lich King yells: You have bested one of my finest, but your efforts are for naught.
The Lich King yells: The frozen heart of Icecrown awaits....

and then even at the Argent Tournament where he literally just waltzes into the middle of it, and instead of Fury of Frostmourning everyone, like he could have done in the Halls of Reflection later on (Do you really think a wall of ice would stop the Lich King? Really?), and smashes the floor for you to fight the Nerubian king again. So here we have multiple times where the Lich is actually inviting us, not so subtly in several cases, to best his greatest champions. And we consistently defeat them.

And then, think about all the times where you were doing something, and the Lich King just Death Gated to wherever you were, proclaimed he knew what your plan was the whole time- and then let you go on doing whatever it is you were doing. Surely, you must represent a serious threat to his regime. Yet he lets that threat continue to exist. WTF?

That's when it dawned on me that the Lich King could have swallowed up pretty much all of Azeroth at any time he wanted. He's got a gigantic army that knows no fear, pain, or remorse, that can only get stronger the you longer you fight it. Also, given the infighting between the factions, namely the Horde and Alliance, who were stupid enough to fight even within Icecrown itself, he was clearly fighting a group of opponents insistent on weakening themselves even as he loomed over them. We, the people of Azeroth, were really no match for the full wrath of the Lich King.

The real shocking thing to me is that after all those obvious signals that he was only luring us in to enslave us when he could have annihilated the world at any time (which I do remember wondering about as I quested) we completely ignored that. Indeed, the whole time he was hoping that we would own the shit out of every single challenge he placed in front of us, and we did. This whole show was for Arthas' vanity (see what Chris Metzen had to say about it even before WotLK came out).

I Delight in the Irony.

There's a few levels of some delicious irony here.

The first bit is the I mentioned above about following in Arthas's footsteps. Really, we almost did exactly what he did- by trying to destroy the Scourge, and vanquish evil, we proved ourselves to be great champions, but nearly became the very evil we were fighting. This is also a bit of poetic justice, or maybe poetic vengeance, for Arthas. The fate that he suffered trying to defend his people, he now attempts to inflict on us. There is a second layer of irony there, we nearly end up just like him by trying to destroy him, even though we were fully aware of what happened to him and that he planned to do it to us. That stroke of evil genius actually gives me chills. But, as it said on the Wrath of the Lich box when you first buy the game: If you gaze into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you.

There is a another bit of irony in the way that the Lich King actually falls. Fortunately, you or another player managed to free Terenas Menethil from Frostmourne, and the Lich King did not count on this. Tirion calls on the Light to free him, breaks free from his icy prison, shatters Frostmourne releasing the trapped spirits inside it, who incapacitate Arthas. Then Terenas resurrects the raid to take advantage of his vulnerable state, and you finally kill him.

But how did Arthas get into being the Lich King in the first place? He, despite all warnings and good judgment, thought that he was the only one who knew best how to save Lordaeron. So he purged Stratholme, and later he took up Frostmourne ignoring his friends and supernatural warnings. Arthas was the picture of hubris before he took up Frostmourne, and he thought that he would be in control. But in the end, Frostmourne controlled him.

And when you defeat him, Terenas and the other spirits turn against him after being released from Frostmourne. When the Lich King harvests your soul into the sword, you actually end up defending Terenas, and helping him. Those spirits being released are what weaken him long enough for you to deliver the final blow.

The true surprise for me was that I don't think Arthas fully understood what Frostmourne really was, ever. If he had never played this gambit of trying test the world greatest champions for what essentially was his own amusement, he would have simply squashed us like insects underfoot, and washed over the world with Scourge the way he intended to. Especially when you consider that he intended to enslave Tirion and forced him to watch the whole process out of spite, but underestimated Tirion's and the Light's power, allowing Tirion to escape. Which allowed Terenas and the spirits to escape. Arhas mistakenly thought he was the absolute master of all these forces, and that everything was under control. That's what cost him his victory, just like last time. Really, he engineered his own defeat.

And once again, it was Arthas's own hubris and overconfidence in his powers that led to his fall. Finally, it is ironic then, that that was how he got to be the Lich King in the first place.