Editing Malekith (section)

==[[The End Times]]==
A large number of things happened in The End Times, but the most notable is that he left Naggaroth to die for Ulthuan in a last-effort ditch to take the throne... and he actually succeeded. All hail <strike>Phoenix</strike> Eternity King Malekith I. This effectively means that he no longer lives with his mom, who was taken by Slaanesh.

Of note, according to Teclis, apparently Asuryan always intended for him to be Phoenix King in the first place. Had he stayed in the fire for just a few seconds longer, he would have actually passed. However, Malekith's failure meant that since the other candidates were wrongfully chosen, rather than tell them this was all not as planned, Asuryan slowly drove the successive line of Phoenix Kings (who were protected from the flames by other mages) insane in due time. All the crap that happened as a result (the Sundering, Naggaroth and everything else) was just an overly elaborate test on the part of the gods to determine if he was truly worthy. The insane fucking assholes...

Except this was all a lie. In the [[Age of Sigmar]] campaign book Broken Realms: Morathi, it has been clarified that the various Phoenix King souls were blessed by Asuryan, still containing fragments of his power (until Morathi consumed them to make herself a goddess but that’s not the point). Basically this means that, despite still gaining part of Asuryan’s power, Malekith’s claim as the rightful king was one massive lie, a ploy by Teclis just to unite the elves against Chaos. Well, it’s better the the original interpretation at least.

During the final battle between Malekith and Tyrion (who had drawn the Sword of [[Khaine]], and became his avatar because of an emo overload), Teclis destroyed the Vortex that kept Ulthuan from sinking, and was to give his allies each the power of one of the Winds of Magic, making them "Incarnates". Malekith was meant to be given the Wind of Aqshy (Fire) but was accidentally given the Wind of Ulgu (Shadow). Malekith emerges victorious, saved by [[Alith Anar]], and throws the now-inert Widowmaker to the bottom of the ocean. Afterwards, The Druchii and Asur evacuate from the sinking Ulthuan to Athel Loren and Malekith becomes king of all Elf kind. He also marries [[Alarielle]], Everqueen of the High Elves and Wood Elves.

He leads the united elven race in Athel Loren, and decides to get shit done. They purge the forces of Chaos from Athel Loren (temporarily, as it's just [[Beastmen]] who are known for being the redshirts of Chaos) and he outlaws the Cult of Khaine, since the Khainites had nearly ruined his plan and Khaine was technically dead. That comes back to haunt him as [[Be'lakor]] incites an uprising of Khainite elves led by a disillusioned Hellebron and Dryads led by the corrupted Coeddil and Drycha. During the battle Drycha realizes she was misled by Be'lakor but is killed by Malekith regardless. He also survives an assassination attempt from Shadowblade (who is revealed to have always been on Hellebron's payroll) and kills him. At the Council of Incarnates, Malekith takes none of Mannfred's shit and opposes the notion of allying with [[Nagash]] and the undead, saying that bone daddy should be destroyed. This shows he has some standards; then again this is NAGASH we're talking about.

In the end, however, it makes no difference - Teclis and the Incarnates try to do a ritual super-spell to stop a new Chaos vortex from eating the world, but [[Balthazar Gelt|one of the other Incarnates]] gets murdered by a whiny vampire basically causing the ritual to epic fail and strip the Incarnates of their power (rapidly disintegrating Teclis and slowly disintegrating Nagash). The ritual chamber starts to collapse, and Malekith saves Alarielle from a falling rock, getting his own legs crushed in the process. She then thanks him by making fun of him and holding hands with Tyrion while they watch the world get engulfed by the new vortex, ending everything. After Tyrion (who was resurrected by the Flame of [[Ulric]] and the Wind of Light) and Alarielle get engulfed, the vortex claims Malekith too. Interestingly, Malekith's last thoughts are about how shitty his life was while mysterious laughter surrounds him, and then all of his memories and the laughter vanish as the world goes poof.

===What About the Prophecy?!===
As many fans would go on to rage about this was an especially jarring ending for Malekith and seemed like a major contradiction on GW's part given the previously mentioned prophecy regarding his demise:

"''And lo, he shall rule with a dark hand and his shadow shall touch upon every land. Steel will be his skin and fire will be his blood, in hatred will he conquer all before him. No blade forged of Man, Dwarf or Elf shall endure him fear. Though will it come to pass that the firstborn son of noble blood shall rise to power. The child will be learned in the darkest arts and he will raise an army of terrible beasts. Thus will the Dark King fall, slain by neither blade nor arrow but by a sorcerous power of darkest magic and so shall his body be consumed in the flames and for all eternity burn.''"

However, as some other fans pointed out the prophecy never specifically stated the firstborn son meant to kill Malekith had to be an ELF and that furthermore, [[Mannfred von Carstein]] in at least one book stated that he was [[Vlad von Carstein|Vlad Von Carstein's]] first sired vampire spawn - plus he's of noble birth - and therefore technically his firstborn son in a roundabout way. Add to that his whole raising an army of the undead in the past with dark magic (thus fulfilling the part of the army of terrible beasts in the prophecy) and the fact he killed...well EVERYONE by causing a magical spell to go awry and it could be argued that the prophecy was indeed fulfilled, just not as expected. An alternate interpretation of "sorcerous power of darkest magic" refers not to the wayward spell, but the source of Manfred's strength and longevity - the vampiric curse created by [[Neferata]]. A spell born by studying part of the magnum opus of [[Nagash|one of the most powerful and evil practitioners of Dhar magic to ever curse the warhammer world with their presence]]. Another possibility is it refers to the spell of Schtillman that brought back Mannfred from destruction - a spell that required human sacrifice. Any of these cases may be appropriate given a lot of prophecies are vague and prone to misinterpretation in literature and real life. Then again maybe this is just a fanon theory and GW just messed up and was hoping nobody would notice. If so, they failed.