Ner'zhul is a major antagonist in the Warcraft franchise. He serves as the main antagonist in Warcraft II: Beyond the Dark Portal and as one of the main antagonists in both Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos and its expansion The Frozen Throne.
He starts out as a benevolent Orc shaman from the Shadowmoon Clan who wants peace and lives in harmony with the spirits until he is tricked by Kil'jaeden into launching a genocidal war against the Draenei by making him believe they are evil and seek to exterminate the Orcs. Later, Ner'zhul is tortured and transformed by Kil'jaeden into the first Lich King. As the Lich King, he creates the Undead Scourge to wage wars against the races of Azeroth and corrupts Arthas Menethil to be his pawn.
He is voiced by Vic Mignogna, who also voices a child Obito Uchiha in Naruto.
His Evil Ranking[]
What Makes Him Heinous?[]
- After Kil'jaeden tricks him into thinking that the spirit of his deceased wife had visited him in his dreams and has warned him about how the Draenei are an evil race who secretly plans to wipe out the Orcs and that the Orcs' ancestors and the spirits of the nature with which the Orc Shamans communicate, Ner'zhul becomes convinced that the Draenei need to be exterminated from the face of Draenor. He gathers the Orc clans, whose shamans had received similar visions sent by Kil'jaeden, and convinces them to unite under one Horde under his rule to fight for their survival by striking first and killing the Draenei. While he later comes to regret his actions when he realizes the Draenei are not actually evil and killing them actually displeases his ancestors and he wasn't the one who continued the genocide against them as that was his apprentice Gul'dan, who took control over the Horde from him and continued to kill the Draenei and to present the as a threat to the Orc race despite discovering they are innocent just so he could obtain more power, Ner'zhul still wanted to commit genocide against them in the beginning and if he hadn't united the Orc clans and convinced them of his cause, this wouldn't have happened.
- Him trusting Kil'jaeden also leads to most of the Orc race being corrupted by demonic magics and their world slowly decaying even though Ner'zhul didn't intend for this to happen, is horrified and remorseful about it and even saved one Orc clan from being corrupted by warning them not to drink the demonic blood Gul'dan is giving them.
- After the Orcs invade Azeroth to gain more fertile land when their own homeworld Draenor starts dying out, Ner'zhul and his Shadowmoon clan are left behind by Gul'dan and they don't participate in the wars to conquer Azeroth. However, after the Orcs are defeated by the Allience and the portal is destroyed, the remaining Orcs on Draenor become desperate because they know their whole race is going to perish if they don't do something. For that reason, a few Orc clans unite once again and they appoint Ner'zhul as their new Warchief. Ner'zhul resorts to ruthless tactics in his desperation to save his people from extinction.
- He realizes that if the Orcs stay on Draenor, they are going to die. For that reason, he wants to open a portal to another world which is weaker than Azeroth, invade it and take it for the Orcs, so his race may survive.
- To open the portal, he needs a few artifacts which are found on Azeroth and he manages to open another portal to Azeroth in place of the old one which was destroyed by using the Skull of Gul'dan and the connection of the old portal to Azeroth. He sends out some of his warriors through the portal to acquire the artifacts and distract the humans which leads to many deaths from the humans.
- He gives a magical artifact to one of the Orcs he has sent through the portal and lies to him that it's a shield which would cover their escape while in fact it is a bomb which is supposed to destroy the portal, along with all the Orcs and humans in its vicinity and, thus, prevent the humans from coming to Draenor and killing the rest of the Orcs. Under the influence of the Skull of Gul'dan, Ner'zhul shows more ruthlessness and is willing to sacrifice loyal soldiers for the cause.
- After his scheme with the bomb fails, a small army of humans, dwarves and elves led by Khadgar and a few others, manages to enter Draenor and chases after Ner'zhul, killing an Orcs they encounter. Ner'zhul, who is cornered by the forces of the Allience, opens countless portals to other worlds on the surface of the whole planet, so his people may escape, which unintentionally causes the planet to overload and random explosions to occur on the entire surface which kill countless Orcs and ruin their world even more.
- When Ner'zhul sees what he has done, under the influence of the Skull of Gul'dan, he orders his few remaining followers to follow him through the nearest portal and escape. When one Orc protests that they shouldn't leave their brothers and sisters to die without trying to help them, Ner'zhul blasts him with magic, killing him on the spot and then escapes through the portal with his few remaining followers.
- After Ner'zhul goes through the portal, he and his followers are intercepted by Kil'jaeden who tortures him brutally by cutting his body piece by piece. After Ner'zhul agrees to do whatever the burning Legion asks of him if the torture stops, Kil'jaeden traps his soul inside the Frozen Throne on Azeroth in a fate worse than death and transforms him into the first Lich King who is supposed to enact the Burning Legion's will on Azeroth and prepare the planet for a democi invasion. As the Lich King, Ner'zhul would engage in a variaty of atrocities which would make him infamous to the inhabitants of Azeroth.
- As the Lich King, he uses his telepathic powers to take control of many native life forms against their will and use them as his minions. He also uses his necromantic powers to raise the dead, creating the Undead Scourge and using it to slaughter all in its path.
- His attempt to conquer the entire icy continent of Northrend eventually lead to a conflict with the Nerubian Empire, sentient spider-like creatures that live in an underground kingdom, but who have great culture and build very complex structures. Ner'zhul leads a genocidal war against the nerubians called the War of the Spider, with Ner'zhul slaughtering most of their race and raising them as undead. His forces even manage to kill the nerubian king, Anub'arak, raise him as an undead and force him to kill his own people. After the war, the undead nerubians become an integral part of the Undead Scourge, the nerubian structures are incorporated into the Undead army and the few surviving nerubians are forced to go even deeper underground, hiding from the Undead Scourge and launching small surprise attacks against them.
- He conducts experiments on countless prisoners. One of these experiments for instance includes a woman being killed, revived as an undead and forced to tear apart her still living husband.
- He experiments with plagues to use against the living to wipe them out.
- He contacts the human mage Kel'Thuzad and turns him to his side with promises of power. He tasks him with returning to the human Lordaeron and creating the Cult of the Damned, an organization of mortal beings who worship the Lich King in the hopes that they would get immortal lives in exchange. The Cult of the Damned leads gruesome experiments against captives, creates and spreads plagues which horribly kill the living and turn them into undead servants for the Lich King and infiltrates the social structures of Lordaeron. This leads to the Undead Scourge being able to spread beyond Northrend into the human realms and to the eventual downfall of Lordaeron with most of the population beings slaughtered by the undead.
- Ner'zhul has watched over the Lordaeron Prince Arthas from afar ever since Arthas has been a little boy because Ner'zhul has chosen him to become his future champion. Ner'zhul has thrust the runeblade Frostmourne from his icy prison, so it might eventually be found by Arthas and he would be corrupted by it and become his champion. He targets Lordaeron's people because he wants to drive Arthas to desperation and manipulate him into being more ruthless and his attempts to save his people from the Undead Scourge. He uses Kel'Thuzad to guide Arthas to Stratholme where Arthas slaughters most of the population when he sees it has been infected with the plague. He uses the dreadlord Mal'ganis to guide Arthas to Northrend where he would be able to find Frostmourne and claim it to gain the power to protect his people from danger. Ner'zhul predicts that Arthas would sacrifice his friend Muradin to claim the sword. After Arthas kills Mal'ganis, Ner'zhul uses the sword to whisper in Arthas' head and further corrupt him. Ner'zhul then uses Arthas and tells him to kill his own father, King Terenas, and uses him to carry out slaughters against the remaining people of Lordaeron and even kill his former mentor, the Paladin Uther the Lightbringer.
- He betrays his supposed ally, the Dreadlord Mal'ganis, and commands Arthas to kill him. Though this is arguably justifiable given that Mal'ganis was one of Ner'zhul's jailers sent by Kil'jaeden to watch over him and Ner'zhul was secretly trying to free himself from the Burning Legion's control and take revenge on them for what they have done to him and the Orc race while seemingly serving them and doing their bidding.
- He has his champion Arthas Menethil along with a huge army of Undead invade the Elven kingdom of Quel'Thalas, so the necromancer Kel'Thuzad could be revived from the waters of the Sunwell and serve him once again. This leads to a mass genocide of the High Elves where most of their race is slaughtered and raised as Undead and the corruption of the Sunwell with the few remaining survivors subsequent losing their immortality and source of magic and forced to flee their homeland. Most of the High Elf survivors become Blood Elves and resort to blood magic to satiate their hunger for magic which would make Ner'zhul indirectly responsible for the immoral acts committed by the Blood Elves. Ner'zhul also allows Arthas to revive the Elven Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner, ensalve her to the Lich King's will, force her to kill her own people against her will and torture her both physically and psychologically to break her which also makes Ner'zhul indirectly responsible for the bad things perpetrated by Sylvanas and the Forsaken in the future.
- He has his servants Arthas Menethil and Kel'Thuzad invade the mage city-state of Dalaran which results in the deaths of many mages and Kel'Thuzad stealing the book of Medivh.
- He has Kel'Thuzad open a portal for the Burning Legion to arrive on Azeroth while Arthas defends him from attacks. This leads to Archimonde, one of the Burning Legion's top commanders, along with armies of demons entering Azeroth, destroying Dalaran, devastating the Eastern Human kingdoms and launching an invasion against Ashenvale Forest and the Night Elves, the World Tree as well as against all the races of Azeroth. While Ner'zhul was planning to betray the Burning Legion eventually and not let them wipe out all life on Azeroth, him opening a portal for them and clearing a lot of the potential resistance against them still makes him responsible for countless deaths which he doesn't care about.
- He betrays his masters from the Burning Legion and sends Arthas Menethil to inform the Night Elf Illidan Stormrage about the Skull of Gul'dan which he could acquire and use its power to defeat the Dreadlord Tichondrius who is one of the highest-ranking demons in Archimonde's invading army. The loss of Tichondrius ultimately leads to the Burning Legion being defeated by Azeroth's races and Archimonde himself being killed. While Ner'zhul's actions save Azeroth from annihilation, he doesn't do it because he cares about Azeroth's inhabitants but because he wants revenge on the burning Legion for what they did to him and his race, but, regardless, that action is still justifiable because the Burning Legion members and Archimonde deserved it.
- After the demons' defeat on Azeroth, Ner'zhul takes control of the Undead Scourge once again and has them continue to commit slaughters against the inhabitants of Azeroth to expand his own army, so he might challenge the Burning Legion eventually. This includes Arthas, Kel'Thuzad and Sylvanas destroying several human villages and killing members of the Silver Hand.
- When fractures start appearing in the Frozen Throne and the Lich King starts losing his power while an army of Blood Elves and Naga, led by Illidan Stormrage and sent by the Lich King's creator, Kil'jaeden, to destroy, Ner'zhul calls Arthas telepathically to come to Northrend and defend him from the intruders. This leads to a bloody battle where the Blood Elves and Naga are defeated with many casualties and Illidan himself is severely wounded.
- After his champion Arthas defeats the intruders, Ner'zhul calls him to the throne and commands him to destroy the Frozen Throne and put the helmet on his head. This causes Ner'zhul and Arthas to merge into one single body with Ner'zhul intending to use Arthas' body to become more powerful and be able to move, planning to continue with strengthening the Undead Scourge. However, his plans go awry when Arthas' half destroys Ner'zhul's half, leaving only Arthas as the second Lich King.
- Considering that Ner'zhul was the one who corrupted Arthas with the blade Frostmourne and the one who told him to put on the helmet, it makes him indirectly responsible for everything Arthas has done as the second Lich King after Ner'zhul's half is destroyed, even if Ner'zhul's intention was for the two of them to be merged in a single body and didn't intend for Arthas to become the second Lich King.
What Makes Him Inconsistent?[]
- He is too tragic to qualify as Near Pure Evil as he starts out as a benevolent Shaman and chieftain of the Shadowmoon clan who takes care of his people, lives in harmony with the spirits and the nature and is the most respected member of his entire race until a series of unfortunate events change this:
- At some point, his beloved wife Rulkan dies of old age, leaving Ner'zhul heartbroken and with desire to meet with her again and be with her which would be used by Kil'jaeden to manipulate him.
- Kil'jaeden, taking the form of Ner'zhul's wife in his dreams, manipulates him into believing that the Draenei with whom the Orcs had lived peacefully until then are actually inherently evil beings who only pretend to be friends of the Orcs, but secretly plot to kill all the Orcs and ruin their world and that they are also responsible the bad things that had recently happened like the red pox epidemic (which were actually caused by Kil'jaeden and Gul'dan). Kil'jaeden also tells him that he needs to wipe out all the Draenei to save his people and the whole world from them and that the sacred spirits of the dead Orcs demand it. Because the Orcs greatly respect the spirits of their dead and they would never order them to do something evil, Ner'zhul listens to Kil'jaeden's words, believing they come from the spirit of his deceased wife, gathers all the Orc clans and tells them they need to protect themselves and their world by killing all Draenei.
- During the war with the Draenei, Ner'zhul travels to Oshu'gun, the sacred mountain of the Orcs where all the spirits reside, in the hopes of meeting with them because he suspects that something is amiss after the spirits start refusing their help to the Orcs. When he arrives, the spirits, including his wife, appear before him and they all make it clear they are furious with his actions, he becomes depressed and heartbroken due to unintentionally dishonoring himself and his race and because the spirits, including his beloved wife, hate him and he becomes determined to set things right.
- While he is on his way to his clan, he is intercepted by his apprentice Gul'dan as well as several of Gul'dan's companions who secretly already work for Kil'jaeden. They know that Ner'zhul has discovered the truth and plans to betray their master, so they kidnap him and secretly abuse him and mistreat him to the point where he psychologically breaks. Ner'zhul is forced to step down as leader of the Horde and give his position to Gul'dan, who wants to corrupt his people and he and his companions continue to mistreat Ner'zhul secretly from the rest of the Orcs. This is a personal betrayal for Ner'zhul who had trusted Gul'dan until then and had even taken him into his clan out of pity and had agreed to mentor him as a shaman.
- Ner'zhul is then forced to watch as the new leaders of the Horde continue to dishonor their race with him not being able to do anything about it because he is too afraid to directly oppose Kil'jaeden. Under the leadership of Gul'dan and Blackhand, the Horde completes the genocide against the Draenei, ruin their homeworld of Draenor and turn it into a wasteland and enslave the Orcs to the will of the demonic Burning Legion by making them drink demon blood which saddens Ner'zhul, but he is unable to do anything significant to stop it because he is watched closely all the time which deeply saddens him as he feels personally responsible for what happened.
- The world of Draenor slowly dies and becomes more and more inhospitable towards the Orcs and, especially after the Horde gets defeated on Azeroth and the portal is destroyed, Ner'zhul fears for the survival of his race. He is plagued with thoughts of death as he feels personally responsible for everything that has happened.
- He acquires the Skull of Gul'dan because he needs it to open a portal to a new world. Its dark magic has a corrupting influence on his mind and slowly causes him to become more ruthless, selfish and uncaring towards others and to resort to more unscrupulous actions and his motivations become more about pursuit of personal power and less about the salvation of his race even if his care for them is not entirely subverted.
- Kil'jaeden intercepts Ner'zhul and tortures him in the most unspeakable ways possible, slowly destroying his physical body over a long period of time. Then, Ner'zhul agrees to serve Kil'jaeden to stop the torture and Kil'jaeden imprisons his soul in a block of ice along with the runeblade Frostmourne and a set of armor, making him the first Lich King, and condemning him to a fate worse than death and forcing him to enact the will of the Burning Legion on Azeroth.
- He shows a sense of honor by being disgusted by many of the things Gul'dan does and how he corrupts the Orcs and has dishonored them. After Gul'dan dies, Ner'zhul thinks he deserves his fate. He also deeply respects Durotan, the leader of the Frostwolf clan, for his sense of honor and for how he stands up to Gul'dan on some occasions. Ner'zhul respects him so much that when he has only enough time to write one letter and warn one clan not to drink the demon, he chooses to warn Durotan because he knows he would listen to his warning with his decision to save the Frostwolf Clan from demonic corruption indirectly leading to the eventual redemption of the Orc race because Thrall, the Orc who leads his race back to their shamanistic ways is born from that clan. After he learns that Durotan has been killed, Ner'zhul laments his loss and regrets that Durotan is not by his side to help him save the Orcs from extinction.
- He cares about his wife, Rulkan, is saddened when she passes away and even after his soul is sent to the Maw and is tortured by the Jailer, he still calls out for her. He also cares about his race because his actions in the beginning, before becoming the Lich King, are to protect them. Even though he briefly subverts his care for his people after opening countless portals over Draenor when he kills a loyal orc and decides to abandon everyone else to die while he and his close followers make their escape through a portal, it was because of the influence of the Skull of Gul'dan on his mind. When he is captured by Kil'jaeden, he is afraid and says that his people need him, showing he hasn't subverted his care for his race. After he merges with Arthas, Arthas uses Ner'zhul's guilt over his role in the downfall of his people to trap him in a downward spiral of despair until nothing remains but a wail of sorrow which further shows that Ner'zhul still cares about his fellow Orcs.
- He feels remorse about the role he has unintentionally played in corrupting his race and also feels remorseful about his role in the genocide of the Draenei and feels very uncomfortable, at one point, when he and he followers have to sleep among abandoned Draenei ruins for that reason and tries not to think about it.
- After his soul is sent to the Maw where he is tortured by the Jailer in extremely brutal ways and is encountered by the heroes who have to fight against him, his end is portrayed as rather pitiful. He talks about how much pain he is in, about his wife, about how much he has suffered in the past and, with his last breath, he calls out for his wife and says he is coming home.
Trivia[]
- Ner'zhul and Obould I Many-Arrows and currenctly the only Orc characters from all of fiction to be Inconsistently Heinous.
External Links[]
- Ner'zhul on the Villains Wiki
- Ner'zhul on the Warcraft Wiki
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Video Games Starcraft |
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Arthas Menethil | Sylvanas Windrunner | Ner'zhul | Kil'jaeden |