I noticed something a little odd when watching the cinematic:

1) Highlord Fordragon, AKA Lavaman, upon the receipt of his new burden:



2) The ice begins to surround him, face still clearly visible:



3) Almost covered by ice:



4) Now completely encased in ice, a new face appears in the ice. Or, perhaps, an old one?

After Watching the clip I must ask, The Lich King, Lord of Frost, along with the burning fire of the Life bending dragons gets incased in ice, and yet it does not melt.

Edit: Realized someone just said what I had said for my second statement.

It's super magic ice. But I'd imagine the ice could be composed of the same ice of the Frozen Throne which would be pretty resilient.

I really still don't understand this "there must always be a Lich King" stuff. Okay, so... Bolvar becomes the Lich King and seals himself away, but... wouldn't the Scourge still be pretty much as big a threat as before? Does beating Arthas just mean that now the Lick King can't walk around Apocalypsing stuff anymore?

Or is it supposed to be implicit that now the Scourge will just kinda sit around and do nothing until their magic wears off? Maybe this will be explained better later..

I also have to echo Charmin's point: It seems like much of the story was ad hoc. I still remember some dev being quoted as saying that there was an epic 3-act storyline for WotLK, with the first ending at the Wrath Gate... and I bought that at the time, but pretty much everything after that felt pretty ad hoc. It's definitely better than TBC overall, but when you consider how brilliantly the WotLK plots were progressing at release... I just feel like Blizzard dropped the ball in the content patches somewhat. I mean, remember all the "Horde and Alliance must unite to defeat Arthas" foreshadowing? Oh well. But maybe my expectations are too high.

So here's a list of unresolved WotLK plot issues:

a) The mysterious disappearance of Tyr.. and no, don't say "Vezax"
b) Azjol-Nerub as an actual zone: Maybe someday.
c) Mal'Ganis. That's all.

Well, I'm sure there are more but I'm tired.

I just have trouble believing that the Lick King(s) are so incompetent (or poorly-focused) that the Scourge would have been more successful without their being unified.

I mean, imagine if it worked like that with the Zerg in Starcraft:

It's not that they'd be more successful, it's that they'd be more destructive in the short term. Bolvar can (in theory) contain the Scourge and prevent that from happening.

"No Lich King" is certainly preferable to having Arthas in the position, but it still results in more death and destruction than having Bolvar wearing the crown.

A Lich King always being around is kind of a blah story, I rather suspect that in whatever expansion turns its attention back to the Lich King; there will be...something to break the cycle; they're probably well aware of not being able to get away with using this storyline repeatedly. Additionally this would beg the question of does the new Lich King eventually move elsewhere, to new zones etc, especially since he would presumably have powers of flame(in addition to frost or perhaps not).

It still makes no sense. I half hope its all been an elaborate ploy by Ner'zhul if only because it would simply mean the characters were gullible and not that the plot was stupid. Either way I hope we see Argent/Ebon death squads around Azeroth slaying scourge to continue to thin their numbers towards eventual extinction.

What I really don't get is how it's making Bolvar's sacrifice out to be this eternal, long-suffering sort of thing with the emotional exchange between him and Tirion. If Bolvar-King really does command all the scourge, he can make them turn on themselves or, better yet, go inert. It's not as though the undead actually contribute to or sustain any sort of ecosystem which would come crashing down without them.

As for the sentient and still malevolent undead/humans/vrykul who would object or rebel, well... isn't that basically what all those OTHER undead are there fore? Bolvar could have the mindless and therefore controllable ghouls, aboms, frost wyrms etc. turn on the dangerous factors, and once everything was in order (which, given the immense powers the Lich King is reputed to hold over the undead, would not take very long) he could call up Tirion or hell, even something like A'dal to grant him his rest.

It's the Circle of life (Que Lion King song), the ultimate source of death must exist or else the ultimate source of life would surely die.

That still doesn't answer why he doesn't turn his forces against the card-carrying omnicidal maniacs in his employ. Or, for that matter, why he doesn't just render all the undead he CAN reach inert, leaving the people of Azeroth less to worry about.

Unless it's sort of like "Bolvar is locked in eternal mental combat with the evil of the Frozen Throne, and therefore can only barely maintain a grip on the scourge while blah blah blah." But even then, if he can't actively control them, aren't the undead effectively just kinda sitting there, maybe reduced to reacting to threats only? Ripe for a prot pally running in and rounding them up to aoe, as it were?