Merely A Setback

2008catchphraseclassic

Published September 24, 2026

Merely A Setback is a World of Warcraft catchphrase pulled from a Kael'thas Sunstrider speech added in the March 2008 patch Fury of the Sunwell2. After Kael'thas was killed by raiders in Tempest Keep and then returned as a boss in Magister's Terrace, his opening line about the earlier defeat being merely a setback became the community's go-to joke every time a dead boss came back in a later expansion.

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Overview

The format is a fill-in-the-blank on Kael'thas's opening line, with players swapping in whichever dungeon or raid a resurrected boss originally died in1. Any villain who got a second life in a later patch is fair game: Kel'Thuzad, Onyxia, Anub'arak, Edwin VanCleef, Arugal. The joke lands because WoW's rotating-door approach to killing off major antagonists made the pattern obvious to anyone who had raided for more than one expansion5.

Tone is affectionate ribbing rather than genuine complaint. Players kept firing it off whenever datamined boss lists leaked ahead of a new expansion, treating any familiar name as a punchline waiting to happen. Blizzard eventually acknowledged the running gag inside the game itself by writing a version of the line into an Icecrown Citadel boss encounter4.

Origin & Background

Platform
World of Warcraft (video game)
Creator
Blizzard Entertainment
Date
2008

The line comes from Kael'thas Sunstrider, the exiled Blood Elf prince who was the final boss of the Tempest Keep raid in The Burning Crusade expansion1. Patch 2.4.0, Fury of the Sunwell, launched in March 2008 and brought him back as the final boss of the five-man Magister's Terrace dungeon, this time as a wretched creature trying to summon the demon lord Kil'jaeden2. He opens the encounter with 'Tempest Keep was merely a setback,' and players lifted the line straight into their own vocabulary3.

How It Spread

The template caught on because Kael'thas was a prominent early example of a boss coming back after being killed in a raid, and the pattern worked cleanly on anyone who followed5. Kel'Thuzad and Onyxia both got the treatment when their level-60 encounters were rebuilt as level-80 fights in Wrath of the Lich King, and Anub'arak drew it after dying in Azjol-Nerub and then again in the Trial of the Crusader raid1.

Blizzard turned the joke into a canonical callback in the Icecrown Citadel raid. Blood Prince Valanar, an undead Blood Elf killed earlier in a Wrath of the Lich King quest chain, opens the Blood Council fight by shouting 'Naxxanar was merely a setback!'4. Once Cataclysm was announced, players were already applying the line to previewed bosses like Edwin VanCleef and Arugal before the expansion shipped3.

How to Use This Meme

Follow the 'X was merely a setback' template, where X is whichever dungeon or raid a returning WoW boss originally died in. Common convention is to fire it off whenever a new expansion or patch preview reveals that a familiar villain is coming back for another rerun1.

Frequently Asked Questions