# This Entire City Must Be Purged > This Entire City Must Be Purged is a 2012 reaction-image meme from Arthas Menethil's Warcraft III quote, popularly used as an image macro expressing extreme disapproval, disgust, or moral condemnation. "This Entire City Must Be Purged" is a reaction image meme built from a quote by Arthas Menethil in the 2002 video game *Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos*. The format first hit 4chan in late 2012 as a Tony Kornheiser-style reaction image, grew into a full-quote image macro by 2017, and saw mainstream Reddit adoption in 2019 before spiking during the early COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020. ## Origin *Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos* launched on July 3, 2002, developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment[1]. The game follows Arthas Menethil's descent from paladin to death knight, with the Stratholme purge serving as the key turning point in his storyline[2]. The quote sat dormant in gaming culture for a decade before someone turned it into a meme. The earliest known meme post appeared on September 30, 2012, when an anonymous user on 4chan's /fit/ board used a cropped image of Arthas as a reaction to a story about being stalked by a disheveled woman at McDonald's[4]. The image functioned as a Tony Kornheiser "Why"-style reaction, placed at the end of a greentext story for comedic effect[3]. - **Platform:** 4chan - **Creator:** Unknown (community-created from Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos by Blizzard Entertainment) - **Date:** 2012 ## Overview The meme uses a screenshot of Arthas Menethil, a central character from *Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos*, paired with his in-game declaration that the city of Stratholme must be "purged" of its plague-infected population. In the game's sixth Human Campaign chapter, "The Culling," Arthas makes the grim decision to kill every citizen before the undead plague can turn them[1]. The image works as a reaction to any situation where someone might jokingly call for an extreme, scorched-earth response to a problem. Common setups include encountering something so terrible that the only logical answer is total destruction. ## How It Spread After its 2012 debut on /fit/, the Arthas reaction image circulated across 4chan boards over the next several years. Users created variations including a Glowing Eyes edit that gave the format extra visual punch[3]. The format shifted in January 2017 when an anonymous /pol/ user posted what appears to be the first version using the full "This entire city must be purged" quote as the caption, making the meme more self-explanatory and shareable outside of imageboards[3]. Reddit saw scattered uses before 2019, but the format didn't take off there until January 31, 2019, when Redditor Cornycash posted a Tinder-themed version to r/dankmemes. The post pulled over 12,500 upvotes within a year[3]. The biggest surge came in early 2020 during the initial spread of COVID-19. The meme became a natural fit for pandemic anxiety posting. On January 26, 2020, a /pol/ thread featured hazmat suit edits of the Arthas image, blending the "purge the city" energy with real-world quarantine fears[4]. Multiple variations from that thread combined Arthas with hazmat gear and biohazard imagery[3]. ## How to Use The format typically works as a punchline reaction: 1. Present a situation, headline, or screenshot showing something alarming, disgusting, or irredeemable 2. Follow it with the Arthas image captioned "This entire city must be purged" 3. The joke lands because the response is wildly disproportionate to the setup, or sometimes disturbingly appropriate ## Fun Facts - The Stratholme purge is one of the most debated moral choices in Warcraft lore. Players and fans still argue whether Arthas made the right call[1]. - The meme sat dormant for five years (2012-2017) in its original reaction crop form before someone thought to use the actual quote as a caption[3]. - *Warcraft III* shipped 4.4 million copies to retail stores and sold over a million within its first month, giving the Arthas scene a massive potential audience before memes even existed in their modern form[2]. - The game's modding tools spawned *Defense of the Ancients* (DotA), which created the entire MOBA genre. The Stratholme purge meme is just one of many cultural artifacts to come out of *Warcraft III*[1]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is "This Entire City Must Be Purged"? It's a reaction image meme using a screenshot of Arthas Menethil from *Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos*, paired with his quote about purging the plague-infected city of Stratholme. It's used as an extreme overreaction to bad situations[3]. ### Where did "This Entire City Must Be Purged" come from? The quote originates from the 2002 video game *Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos* by Blizzard Entertainment[1]. Its first known use as a meme was on 4chan's /fit/ board on September 30, 2012[4]. ### What does "This Entire City Must Be Purged" mean? In the game, Arthas decides to kill an entire city's population to prevent a zombie plague from spreading[1]. As a meme, it's a comedic call for total destruction in response to something unpleasant or irredeemable[3]. ### How do you use "This Entire City Must Be Purged"? Post the Arthas image as a reaction to any situation so bad that "purging" feels like the only answer. It works best with absurd setups where the extreme response is the joke[3]. ### Is "This Entire City Must Be Purged" still popular? The meme saw its biggest spike during the early COVID-19 outbreak in January 2020[4]. It still circulates in gaming and meme communities, though at a lower frequency than its 2019-2020 peak[3]. ### What game is the "Purge" meme from? *Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos*, a real-time strategy game released on July 3, 2002, by Blizzard Entertainment[1]. ### Who is Arthas Menethil? Arthas is a central character in *Warcraft III* who starts as a paladin of the Human Alliance and gradually falls to darkness. The Stratholme purge is the pivotal moment in his corruption arc[2]. ### When did the meme go viral on Reddit? The breakout Reddit moment came on January 31, 2019, when user Cornycash posted a Tinder-themed version to r/dankmemes that earned over 12,500 upvotes[3]. ### Why did the meme spike during COVID-19? The pandemic made "purge the city" feel uncomfortably relevant. Users on /pol/ created hazmat suit edits of Arthas in January 2020 as the outbreak dominated global news[4]. ## References 1. [/fit/ - Fitness » Thread #14977055]() 2. [/pol/ - Politically Incorrect » Thread #240967595]() 3. [This Entire City Must Be Purged - Know Your Meme]() 4. [Second presidency of Donald Trump]() 5. [Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos]() 6. [Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos - Wikipedia]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/this-entire-city-must-be-purged Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library