Arthas Menethil

Arthas Menethil is a fictional character in the Warcraft universe, a fictional universe in which a series of games and books are set.

Backstory
Arthas Menethil is the son of King Terenas king of Lordaeron, the northernmost Human kingdom, and is thus the crown prince of Lordaeron. He has a sister named Calia Menethil. Arthas was first introduced in the novel Day of the Dragon as a young boy. At the age of nineteen he was inducted into the Knights of the Silver Hand at the behest and with the sponsorship of the renowned paladin Uther Lightbringer. It is indicated in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne that he had once competed with of the Elven Kingdom of Quel'Thalas to win the heart and hand of Jaina Proudmoore. Little else is known of Arthas during his younger years.

Role in Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos
As a Paladin

At the beginning of the first section of the single-player campaign, Prince Arthas and his mentor and friend Uther the Lightbringer are battling Blackrock Orcs when he hears of a mysterious plague in northern Lordaeron. Meeting with the sorceress Jaina Proudmoore, they journey northward in a desperate bid to investigate the plague. At every step they are confronted by a necromancer named Kel'Thuzad, the founder of The Cult of the Damned, who always departs with cryptic remarks to Arthas about his eventual fate. Following the necromancer to Andorhal, Arthas and Jaina Proudmoore discover that the plague was being administered to the unwitting populace through infected grain. Before their very eyes, they watched as innocent townspeople fell ill and perished, only to rise again as the undead and attack the living. Realizing that the town was in danger of being overrun, Arthas sends Jaina Proudmoore to gather Uther the Lightbringer and his knights, while he and his forces attempt to defend the town. They are nearly overtaken by the time that Uther arrives, and together they manage to defeat the undead attackers. Eventually Jaina Proudmoore and Arthas manage to slay Kel'Thuzad, but the infected grain had already been distributed across the countryside by unwitting farmers and merchants. Arthas arrives at the city of Stratholme and decides to slay the entire population before the plague can take effect there, but Uther the Lightbringer and Jaina Proudmoore refuse to follow his order. Arthas rashly removes Uther the Lightbringer from command, resulting in the departure of Uther and his knights as well as Jaina Proudmoore. Then, a Dreadlord named taunts Arthas as he converts some of the city's residents into the undead through the plague. Racing against the Dreadlord's dark mission to convert the townspeople, Arthas successfully purges the city. Arthas, now full of vengeful wrath, then rallies his forces and sets off to pursue Mal’Ganis to the continent of Northrend, leaving Stratholme a flaming wreck of death and sorrow. Later, Uther the Lightbringer returns to the city, appalled at what he sees. He finds Jaina Proudmoore there, and finds out from her that Arthas has taken the fleet north to pursue Mal’Ganis in Northrend.

One month later, Arthas arrives in Northrend with a small group of loyal followers. They encounter a group of stranded dwarves exploring the continent in search of a runeblade called Frostmourne. Arthas quickly enlists their aid, and with the help of their leader, Arthas' old friend Muradin Bronzebeard, they cut through the Undead. Shortly afterward, an emissary of the king arrives and informs Arthas that the king has recalled the expedition. Infuriated at this news, Arthas conspires with a group of local mercenaries to burn and sink the ships that they used to sail to Northrend. While his men worked at clearing a path to the shoreline through the thickness of the forest, Arthas, Muradin and the mercenaries slipped past them unseen, and succeeded in destroying the ships, stranding his own men. His men eventually reached the shoreline to find that their only way home has been lost. When asked what had happened, Arthas turned on the mercenaries, claiming they had sunken the ships and robbed his people of their only way home. Within seconds, Arthas and his men killed the surprised mercenaries, while Muradin could only watch, horrified.

Privately, Muradin confronts Arthas about his treachery, about how he lied to his men and betrayed the mercenaries that fought for him, and that he was growing concerned about what it happening to his friend. Arthas, disregarding his friend’s concern, only stated that Muradin wasn’t there to see what Mal’Ganis had done. Muradin, although no longer sure if what they’re doing is justified, remains to help Arthas, since he previously swore to see this endeavor through. Arthas and Muradin take a force of men through monster-infested caverns to reach Frostmourne, hidden in a frozen vault deep beneath a mountain. When they finally come upon the sword, the dwarf warns Arthas that it is cursed, but Arthas, consumed by rage and a lust for vengeance, swears an oath to bear any curse and pay any price if the sword will help him. The ice around Frostmourne shatters and a shard of it kills Muradin. Arthas, unmoved, abandons his warhammer and takes the sword. With his newfound power, his army destroys Mal’Ganis’s base. He finally corners Mal’Ganis, who revealed that all Arthas had done was foretold by his master, the Lich King, and that it is the voice of the Lich King that whispers to Arthas through the sword. Dark whispers are heard from the sword as Mal’Ganis asks what the Lich King is telling Arthas to do. Arthas announces that the Lich King has told him that the time for his vengeance has come, and quickly kills the shocked and betrayed Dreadlord. Without another word, Arthas abandons his army and flees into the icy wastes of Northrend, slowly losing his sanity.

As a Death Knight

In the ending cinematic of the first campaign, some unspecified time later, a black-clad Arthas walks through the streets of the Capital City of Lordaeron. Flanked by two hooded figures, he enters the royal throne room and kills his father, King Terenas, with Frostmourne. This event marks the end of the human kingdom of Lordaeron.

At the beginning of the second part of the campaign, Arthas is greeted as a Death Knight by Tichondrius. He learns that upon taking up Frostmourne, he began to hear the voice of the Lich King Ner'zhul, who had forged the blade for the purpose of ensnaring a powerful soul. The first it claimed was Arthas'. Tichondrius instructs Arthas to gather together Kel'Thuzad's Cult of the Damned, then to recover the remains of the necromancer for resurrection. Upon doing so, Arthas sees the ghost of Kel'Thuzad, who advises him not to trust the Dreadlords. Arthas then kills his once-mentor Uther Lightbringer to retrieve a sacred urn to carry the necromancer's remains. Arthas then journeys to the woods of Quel'thalas, the homeland of the High Elves. He battles his way through the Elven defenders, killing the Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner and subsequently resurrecting her as a Banshee. The Undead sack the elven capital of Silvermoon and corrupt the Sunwell, the source of magic for the High Elves. Here Kel'Thuzad is reborn as a Lich.

Kel'Thuzad tells Arthas that the plague is an initial strike by the Burning Legion, a demonic army that employs the Dreadlords and has spent countless millennia rampaging through the Great Dark Beyond. Next, Arthas and Kel'Thuzad attack a nearby Blackrock Orc Clan village guarding a demonic portal. After crushing the Orcs, Kel'Thuzad uses the portal to contact Archimonde, one of the Legion's mightiest leaders, who instructs the lich on how to open a portal allowing the demon into the world of Azeroth. Arthas and Kel'Thuzad assault the wizards' city of Dalaran and claim the spellbook of Medivh, the Last Guardian. Kel'Thuzad uses this book to summon Archimonde to Azeroth, whose first action is to destroy the entire city of Dalaran at once using an eldritch spell, which ends the second part of the campaign.

Arthas is absent for most of the remainder of the game; he briefly appears in one chapter, facing off against the newly released Illidan Stormrage amid the corrupted forests of Ashenvale. Arthas tells Illidan how to acquire the Skull of Gul'dan and kill their mutual enemy Tichondrius, which deals a heavy blow to the Burning Legion.

Role in Warcraft III: The Frozen Throne

The player next encounters Arthas during the third part of The Frozen Throne. After the downfall of the Burning Legion at the end of Reign of Chaos, Arthas journeys from Kalimdor back to Lordaeron. Upon his arrival, he launches an assault against the remaining Dreadlords ruling over the ruins of Lordaeron's Capital City, and declares himself king. It is then revealed that before the story of Warcraft III even began, the Lich King pushed the sword Frostmourne out of the Frozen Throne so Arthas could find it. A fracture in the Lich King's icy prison formed, leading to his gradual loss of power over the course of the campaign as the his magic seeps out of the fracture. Arthas, his strength directly linked to the Lich King by his wielding of Frostmourne, suffers seizures and loss of strength (manifested in-game as level loss). Regaining her freedom of will from the weakened Lich King, Sylvanas and her banshees rebel. Her dreadlord allies occupy the Capital City, and Sylvanas herself attempts to kill Arthas in an ambush, but is foiled by Kel'Thuzad's intervention.

Arthas escapes and headed to Northrend at the Lich King's summons. Waiting to meet him is a legendary king of the Nerubians, Anub'arak. Using their combined might, Arthas and Anub'arak descend into the depths of the ancient spider kingdom Azjol-Nerub, cutting through Illidan's Naga and Blood Elf warriors, as well as a company of Dwarves and a horde of subterranean monsters called 'The Faceless Ones', awoken by the partial destruction of the glacier by Illidan. Eventually Arthas and Anub'arak emerge at the base of the Frozen Throne, where the Lich King channels his power into Arthas once more, enabling him to regain his strength. The Undead drive back Illidan's combined Naga and Blood Elf forces. At the base of Icecrown Citadel, Arthas defeats Illidan after a fierce fight which leaves Illidan mortally wounded. Arthas ascends to the Frozen Throne, ignoring echoes of voices from his past. The Lich King commands Arthas to release him from the Frozen Throne with Frostmourne. Obeying, Arthas shatters the ice prison encasing the armor imbued with Ner'zhul's spirit, and places the helmet upon his head. Ner'zhul's voice echoes in his mind: "Now, we are one!" At that moment, the spirits of Ner'zhul and Arthas fuse into a single being.

While some fans suspected that Arthas had killed Illidan, Blizzard has repeatedly assured them that this is not true and that the original script for that scene would have made it clear that Arthas had simply beaten him into submission and humiliated him. As a result, Illidan is present in the first expansion pack to World of Warcraft, World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade, having fled to Outland to lick his wounds and build a bulwark against the Lich King/Arthas, the Scourge and the Burning Legion.

Role in World of Warcraft
In World of Warcraft, which takes place four years after The Frozen Throne, the Lich King resides on the Frozen Throne, and has rebuilt the massive fortress around it, which houses a thousand undead warriors. His loyal vassal, Kel'Thuzad, commands the Scourge in Lordaeron, while Sylvanas with her Forsaken hold only Tirisfal, a small part of the kingdom. Presumably, he will continue to bolster the Scourge to make sure that there is no threat left from his creator and former masters, the demon lord Kil'jaeden and the Burning Legion.

In the Eastern and Western Plaguelands the Scourge appears to be rising in power, a fact which has given rise to very ominous rumors of his return. His floating Necropolis, Naxxramas, hovers above the Eastern Plaguelands, further bolstering his army. Arthas' lieutenant, the Lich Kel'Thuzad, commands this 40-man raid instance. The voice of the Lich King is heard throughout the Kel'Thuzad boss encounter.

It has been confirmed that the continent of Northrend will be the primary focus of the second expansion pack, Wrath of the Lich King. Northrend houses the Frozen Throne and the ruins of the Nerubian kingdom Azjol-Nerub. Players will be able to challenge Arthas as the final boss of a major raiding instance, though Blizzard has stated that player characters will not stand a chance against Arthas until they are capable of advancing to level 80 at least. The level cap currently stands at 70 with the Burning Crusade expansion.

Many fans of Warcraft III believe that if Blizzard keeps true to the continuity of the story, that Arthas would probably be the most powerful single unit in the entire game. This is based on his single-handed defeat of Illidan, who is arguably the second most powerful character in the story, and also because Arthas has now ascended to a completely new level of power that is above and beyond any other non-monster, humanoid character in the Warcraft universe.

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