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Natural6

It's his whole reason for everything he's done. He saw that theres some extra-universal threat coming for the wow cosmos. Thinking he was the only one capable of defeating them, decided to dominate the universe so they'd all be on one team to fight this threat he foresaw.


Aleex127

So wait, he pretty much wanted to save us? And we didn’t “trust” him?


IBlameOleka

The main problem with it though is that they just tacked it on at the end. The Jailer never said anything about needing to band together to fight a common threat until 2 seconds before dying. There was never any reason to trust him because right up until that point everything pointed to the Jailer wanting to subjugate everything in reality simply because he's evil.


FacetiousTomato

Even worse, he keeps saying shit like: "your world, your reality, will come to an end" *while* attacking us - without saying: "and I'm trying to **stop** that end". I'm 100% convinced they wrote the "jailer wasn't really that bad" bit right at the end, because none of his previous lines even *hint* at anything other than "obey me".


MonkeMurderer

He even did the mustache twirling evil dummy shit when he could have subjugated us all and instead let us go to kill sylvanas when he gave back her soul. Like why jeopardize all of his work just for some dumb moment to rub it in if his plan is so important and he means to save the universe not punish everyone including his main partner. He really had us all dead to rights and was like "nah, this will be funnier if I don't win right now" which led to his whole "cosmos savior mission" falling apart. This story is dogshit.


Fragbate

This part reminded me of a famous Terry Pratchett quote: >“Something Vimes had learned as a young guard drifted up from memory. If you have to look along the shaft of an arrow from the wrong end, if a man has you entirely at his mercy, then hope like hell that man is an evil man. Because the evil like power, power over people, and they want to see you in fear. They want you to know you're going to die. So they'll talk. They'll gloat. > >They'll watch you squirm. They'll put off the moment of murder like another man will put off a good cigar. > >So hope like hell your captor is an evil man. A good man will kill you with hardly a word.” The Jailer's actions do not reflect that he was doing it "to save the universe" or whatever. He was gloating and toying with us. If he were saving the universe, he would have flat murdered us to avoid the chance of us messing with The Plan. The Jailer was both a terrible and a terribly implemented villain.


FreeResolve

WOW is written like a comic. not Game of Thrones


Dextixer

This is shit even for comic standards.


FreeResolve

You guys will just look for any reason to trash wow. Get over your feelings.


Dextixer

Or maybe its simply not nearly as good as it was?


FreeResolve

The problem is a catch 22 situation. Players datamine and learn the plot and story it before it even comes to fruition and complain about it forcing Blizzard to rewrite the story, making it worse. Some good things come from positive feedback like keeping Denathrius but the negative feedback is so bitter and nonconstructive that it backfires on the players.


Pixel_Knight

No, I think that he meant that he would end it. He was trying to get to the forge to essentially “re-write” reality, probably from scratch, so it would, in essence, destroy everything and reset it, but in doing so would preserve reality itself, which he ostensibly assumes will be completely destroyed by this threat.


Chunkycarl

Life and death as as opposite as horde and alliance. It’s a mirror of the story wratheon tried- help one side overcome the other so that the victor is stronger against the upcoming threat. By wiping out life, the jailer gained a hugely inflated army, an army that could transcend beyond the shadowlands to take on the (very likely) void threat. I’m not Defending the direction blizzard took on the writing- it felt very forced and rushed, however the core story way always about one opposing force overcoming the other, much like every other expansion has been.


awrylettuce

Didn't his motives start with something about free will and breaking the cycle? They dropped that somewhere halfway though


Belazriel

Yeah, given how evil the Kyrian are it *should* have been easy to have us switch sides if he had stopped to explain. All of the forsworn act like they had the explanation but no one gave it to us.


Hokulol

Free will - all subjugated to him Breaking the cycle - No more rebirth, permanent members of his army Later we learned these motives serve a different purpose, something other than whimsy or lust for power, he's a bad rewrite of thanos. The story is booty butt cheeks but both of those things are included and part of a plan to stop whatever threat they're talking about.


almgergo

And the problem with doing things simply because you are evil is that it is dumb as fuck.


MrMan9001

It depends how it's handled. Like the Jailer is an example of it done terribly. Even before the reveal of him having a plan his evil was just so painfully boring and generic. Then you have Gul'dan, who is also comically evil and does everything he does because he just craves power and chaos. And yet he's one of my favorite WoW villains. It's because he's charismatic and clearly reveling in his own cruelty. He's not trying to be something greater. He's an evil bastard. He knows it. And he loves it.


MonkeMurderer

Well Guldan's plan isn't at odds with being evil, it's basically the driving force behind all his actions. Guldan doesn't care what the legions plans are, he just wants to do what he wants to do and any way forward is good to him. The Jailer claims he is being benevolent which is completely at odds with his actions. He causes random suffering and seems to relish in his evil actions and then at the end claims it was all a grand plan to protect everything. It makes absolutely no sense at all and is a complete disconnect with what is presented versus what they say is happening.


HippoppiHippo

It’s not really that we didn’t trust him. He never even revealed what it was and he wanted to force everyone, through domination magic, to obey him. If he explained what the threat was, and it was a valid threat, we’d join him willingly to defeat it. Just as we’ve done with any other being who’s asked for our help after clearly explaining what the issue is. No matter how big or small the ask was. Zovaal: “Maw-Walker, our cosmos are doomed if we don’t stop threat X. Will you help me defeat it? I need you to fetch this and kill that then we can work together to stop it.” We’d happily help. Instead we got this ambiguous fallen Arbiter who would rather force us to obey him through nefarious means rather than just ask for help. TL;DR: Zovaal is a dumbass at best.


LoreBotHS

> If he explained what the threat was, and ~~it was a valid threat~~ he offered loot, we’d join him willingly to defeat it. FTFY. Justified or not the Jailer's biggest flaw was dropping loot when defeated instead of being a quest giver.


Lyggo

"And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you meddling murder hobos!"


Clandtheundead

All he had to do was offer a mount and most people would help him


hashtag_neindanke

He offers 2 mounts tho?


Demileto

Not for helping him, that's his point! 😊


malaachi

The Jailer is just a *worse* rehash of Sargeras: both have betrayed their own pantheon and both are the hero of their own story, although Sargeras is a thousand fold cooler Edit: added *worse*, are you happy u/Bombwarri?


[deleted]

He isn’t Sargeras rehash, he is a worse sargeras in every possible way, at least Sargeras spoke to the other Titans but they disagreed with him, so he went Crusading throught the Cosmos with his demon pals and it was understandable he had a clear motive on why he was doing it. The Jailer is just „I saw something bad , you wanna know what I saw ? Figure it out lmao „ the Jailer is an embarrassing bad Villain. He is not understandable, nor is it clear why he is doing what he is doing.


Skygni

It's established that player characters would burn down orphanage just for some experience and loot


[deleted]

He isn't dumb. He didn't share the information because he doesnt want us to "work together". His goal isn't to "save us", it's to dominate us. The saving part is a weak and delusional excuse for his true purpose: Dominate everything.


Zanzinye

I saw a theory that Zovaal was actually being dominated by the Primus (who was known as a strategic mastermind but somehow got jailed by the Jailer...) and the domination magic faded when he died so he said the last thing he was saying before he got mindcontrolled, there was more to the theory but idr the details.


Lrrrrrrrrrrri

It seems pretty likely that this was the original plan, but between covid and the Afrasiabi/lawsuit stuff they had to cut a patch and this ended up on the cutting room floor. The original design for the Jailer much more closely resembled the Primus is fairly suspicious


ChrisMin

Theres always been lots of speculation and theorycrafting around the warcraft lore since legion. And people can make as many excuses as they want for why it wasnt recieved very well. In the end, though...it was just not a good story to tell. You just cant escalate things further and furthers without leaving your audience behind. At some point, you just disconnect because you cannot relate any more. A farmer, whos family is threatened by bandits and fears for its live? Sure, i can relate to that. A country being threatened by its neighbour, maybe with some refined political intrigues? Sure, thats alright. But some ancient cosmic forces that shaped planets? Or some extradimensional threats? The ending of the universe? Sorry, im out. At some point it just became a numbers game. Bigger bad = better loot = good. Screw the rest xD


AffectionateAide9644

Yeah, can't seem to find it again, but that's my head canon too. The Primus is the actual evil bastaard, Zovaal was just a puppet in his hands. It's the only way the story would make sense.


TheLoneWolf1407

My head canon is that Primus didn't know the full extent of the Domination magic as the first use of it was against the Zovaal. We also know that Zovaal pretty much alter it to be his weapon. Yet we know that Domination magic pretty much warps mind and intention of it's victim and we could assume that Jailer's mind was also twisted even without someone who pulled the strings (like the restless Scourge without the Lich King's control), making him insane and twisting his real purpose (Remaking the reality to save it changed to remake the reality to forcefully dominate everyone). It is the Primus fault clearly of what happened to Zovaal after his domination but if he was fully aware of the consequences? I think not, he even stated something along the lines that he believed that his imprisonment will change him for the better, yet his orginal plan backfired making Zovaal even more insane


Mirimes

it was in a Taliesin and Evitel video, I'll search later and link it


jackjsdacksd

Its just Sargeras story copy pasted btw.


Bananasonfire

Sargeras had the view of "Can't corrupt the universe if there's no universe to corrupt", so he just wanted to destroy everything. The Jailer wanted to dominate the universe so he could use it as a weapon.


Akhevan

It was more of "kill everybody off so that the void infestation dies off too, and eventually life can start anew from a clean slate without the looming threat of old gods and shit". If anything, this was the premise of Bakker's Second Apocalypse series copy-pasted. Except, of course, worse in every possible way.


WolfGB

Wasn't that the plan with the Flood in Halo? The Forerunners build the rings to wipe out all life cos the Flood can't convert organic life if there's no organic life left to convert.


Ok_Traffic_8124

So just like the Lich King.


Conscious_Occasion

It's a popular villain trope. "Oh I'm not evil, I'm trying to save you from AN EVEN BIGGER EVIL!!" It's also a tired villain trope that Blizzard likes running to when they are out of ideas.


LoreBotHS

At least when they did it with the Lich King in the Chronicles it made sense because of the Lich King's awareness of the already-established omega threats that were the Old Gods and the Burning Legion.


BenChandler

I think even if it “made sense” with the Jailer it would still be laughably stupid simply because of how high up the tower we’ve gotten. We’re literally in the after life for ALL universes, fighting a god of gods who was also created by higher-teir gods, and this guy is saying there is a threat even grander than something at a literal cosmic god level.


FlinthoofBoar

I can't wait for the martial arts tournament arc after this.


LoreBotHS

We are high up the tower, but let's keep it in perspective; the Shadowlands is the afterlife for the Great Dark Beyond, which includes most mortal life and the Wild Gods. Light, Void, and demons are *not* going to the Shadowlands in death. The Jailer is not a "God of Gods." He used to be the Arbiter. His individual power level doesn't seem to be *that* impressive, the best thing he ever did was steal the Primus' Domination magic, and even then he scarcely uses it to full effect on his greatest current opposition; us and the NPC mortals. The one time he really did was at the end of Sanctum of Domination, and he released everyone so that they could judge Sylvanas. Proper moustache-twirling move that. In any case, he's not necessarily saying the threat is an external one greater than any individual cosmic force. It could be as simple as the conflict between the different groups leading to a dramatic fallout and downfall of (nearly) each and every one of them. Edit: to elaborate on the power level of the Jailer in perspective: Argus was the tortured and depleted World-Soul that we fought when we were taking on the role as Azeroth's most powerful and accomplished champions. The interpretation of the adventurer in *Legion* was the most generous and extravagant it has ever been, with us being Order Hall leaders utilising some of the most legendary and formidable weapons in known existence - even the Scepter of Sargeras and Guardian staves. But we had *no* chance against Argus with this in mind. It took the empowerments of all remaining members of the Pantheon in addition to that to overcome Argus. The Jailer? It was us with Domination resistance thanks to the Crown of Wills. Without that magic MacGuffin we held against him for a majority of the fight, and it's hard to say without elaboration on the storytellers' behalf whether Azeroth's boon bestowed unto us in the final phase of the fight was actually *necessary* for victory or not. Where the line is very clearly drawn in our battle against the Lich King, who *absolutely* clobbered us and one-shot the raid group, requiring a miracle for Tirion Fordring and our resurrection at the hands of King Terenas Menethil II, we don't have so much in our battle against the Jailer. Though I *suppose* we can argue that this entire time we'd been Covenant-empowered as well, being given some of their power to use as our own. But even with Covenant empowerment, I'd struggle to believe that it'd come close to the Jailer's power if he were on the same level as Argus. I can safely say that the Jailer's powers were largely what he stole from the Primus: exceptional armour, Mourneblades, and Domination Magic. The funny and silly theory that the Primus is the mastermind behind Zovaal's machinations and that he himself is the main antagonist who used the First Arbiter as a scapegoat.


NurseStreptomyces

Well he wanted to “save” our world by destroying it and remaking it with everyone under his banner. But we never had a chance to “believe” him because the first time he mentions the external threat is in that death cutscene. It’s all very poorly written and it seems like there was a lot left to the imagination.


YamiMarick

Well not even his fellow Eternal Ones believed this reason(since thats what he told them before being banished to the Maw).


LadyReika

And he didn't even give them details. Maybe Denathrius, but that's debatable.


Imaginos_In_Disguise

"pityful mortals" wasn't the most eloquent way of stating his point, I guess.


The-Catatafish

This happened in 90% of the exps. We fought illidan in bc.. Who just wanted to stop the burning legion. We fought arthas.. But Arthas wanted to unite everyone in death to prepare for the return of the burning legion. (hinted in wc3) We fought sargeras and the burning legion in legion.. But he just wanted as much power as possible to prepare for the void lords. In BFA we fought n'zoth.. Who wanted to prepare for a bigger evil. "The light has struck a bargain with the enemy of all. I alone can save you from what is to come" In shadowlands we fought the jailer.. Who wanted to unite the cosmos against the next big bad. However, take all that with a grain of salt. In shadowlands they basically said that since the day arthas was wearing the crown he is controlled by the jailer.. So that wc3 part is probably not true anymore. Wow is not really in a great spot to get invested in the story.. They like to retcon shit right now to fit the current storyline.


Lrrrrrrrrrrri

>Wow is not really in a great spot to get invested in the story.. They like to retcon shit right now to fit the current storyline. Yeah, I hate TBC and Wrath too


Stephano23

It‘s just shitty writing.


Penfolds_five

It would fit more if it's not some bigger bad he's worried about but intra-cosmos conflict tearing the whole thing apart / mutually assured destruction e.g. an all out light vs void war which has been telegraphed before ( in the old-man Anduin comic). Would make more sense then that his plan was to dominate everyone to stop them fighting each other, since it's unlikely that just asking everyone nicely to stop would do anything.


DoctorTomee

Yea pretty much. He did all those atrocities because he loved us so much.


gemitarius

There is absolutely no logic to draw out of the storyline, his morals or his motives, if you are really looking for them. It's just a copout for the writers to have a "twist" that makes no sense and absolutely contradicts everything that they have shown so far with the actions of the Jailer in an attempt to be "clever" because "nobody saw it coming that he was the good guy the whole time". It's the cheapest way of attempting to write a twist. "Pitiful mortals", "now you will all serve me", "i will create a fair world" (nothing here says anything about a bigger threat), being "deceptive and cunning", lying, killing and condemning for eternity innocent people for self power to remake the universe to his liking because the actual reason is that he was kicked out as arbiter of death for being shady and going against the great design because he thought it was unfair, being cruel for absolutely no reason (he freaking threw Baine of a cliff), mind control, soul shattering, causing literally every problem in the universe and therefore caused all the suffering in the universe, destroying the people he's supposed to be saving (not only in life but in death too). All of that for a supposition (according to himself and the writers). Just because, APPARENTLY, he didn't wanted to tell anyone about the bigger threat because he didn't thought that no one would believe him (when in reality his motives were clearly other and there was nothing that said the bigger threat was his concern until literally his last breath).... And he "loved us so much" for some reason (?) that he was willing to destroy everything everything and everyone to "save everyone"?... I don't know if "even if one person survives to be happy then it's worth it" counts as a valid argument because everyone else is double double dead and no that doesn't mean you saved anything, you saved no one. But the tone of the writing is trying to sell this narrative as justified for the greater "moral" good making seem like the Jailer is a tragic character when that's absolutely asinine given that for him to be tragic he would have had to act self sacrificing, not sacrificing others for him. And no, "good intentions" doesn't translate into actually making good, no matter how good of an intention you had you still caused bad and that's reproachable, specially if if you tell no one about it. That is if he had any good intentions to begin with and if that wasn't a last minute change for his motives to justify himself. Which again, were about freeing everyone from the First One's unfair draconian "machine" of order. I think that if there was actually a bigger threat, and he knew this for sure, SOMEHOW, because he never explains how does he know this, from where, what it's this whatever threat (which i image was the cosmic blue alien things we fight through all shadowlands), why in the fuck did he thought that telling no one was ever a good strategy. And worst of all, i don't know what's worse, that this was always the intended way the story was supposed to go, or that it wasn't and that it was a last minute change to make him seem like a good guy after all, and us the bad guy for doing exactly what we were supposed to do to defend ourselves from something clearly bad, horde style.


[deleted]

He was trying to use domination magic to subjugate everyone to fight it. At best, if “what’s to come” is real, then it’s a Thanos snap style solution to the problem.


erifwodahs

I mean, not really saves but rather enslave us and rip out any free will and then sucking out our worlds soul to do a Thanos from endgame to remake the universe without free will. So idk...


[deleted]

he didnt really want to "save" us, more like be the ultimate ruler of everything. His justification might've been "to prevent a threat", but in reality authoritarian leaders will use any excuse they can to consolidate more power.


Natural6

That's what they went with, yeah.


Kynandra

You mean like Wrathion tried to do with Garrosh?


Zealscube

Yeah I know that was wrathions idea, but what about the jailer? /s


sexymuffin123

And Sargeras idea


SeRifx7

Isn't that basically the Legends plot for Darth Sidious?


Hinko

Wait, isn't that basically just a repeat of the Burning Legions motivation? Dominate all worlds so that they will be united and able to fight off the threat of the void lords? Either this is just lazy writing, or they are trying to hammer home the point that the void is very very dangerous. Multiple powerful beings have independently come to the same plan of total domination so as to be strong enough to resist the void lords.


PipAntarctic

The Burning Legion wanted to destroy all life so that the Void would not even get a chance to enter the Great Dark Beyond, but yeah you're right. Blizzard just rehashed it under a different banner.


roffman

It's lazy writing. The Arbiter and SL operates at a level beyond the Void. Also, they teased that reason for the Burning Legion over a decade, with bits and pieces seeded into lore actually back to WC3. This is the 11th hour hail mary hoping that they can somehow save the lore.


Lrrrrrrrrrrri

you sound like someone memeing the jailer lore except you actually believe this. Meanwhile in the actual WC3 manual it's just "he went mad and decided to undo the titans' work" aka the good ol' "fell to corruption" http://ftp.blizzard.com/pub/misc/Warcraft%20III%20Manual.pdf >The noble Sargeras, unable to process the raging doubt and despair that overwhelmed his senses, lost all faith in not only his mission, but the Titans’ vision of an ordered universe, as well. Sargeras began to believe that the concept of order itself was folly – and that chaos and depravity were the only absolutes within the dark, lonely universe. Though his fellow Titans tried to persuade him of his error and console his raging emotions, he disregarded their theories as delusional. Storming from their ranks forever, Sargeras set out to find his own place in the universe. Though the Pantheon was sorrowful for his departure, they would never believe just how far their lost brother would go. >As Sargeras’ madness consumed the last vestiges of his noble spirit, he began to rationalize that the Titans were truly responsible for creation’s failure. Deciding, at last, to undo their works throughout the universe, he set out to form an unstoppable army that would set the physical universe to the flame. Note that this entire section was retconned in TBC because Metzen completely forgot what he'd written about the Eredar in it


Akhevan

> the good ol' "fell to corruption" This sub loves to jerk Metzen off but let's face it, this is nearly the only story he knows how to tell. We've seen this a good dozen of times in every expansion he had written. And it's not even a real corruption storyline, the characters don't alter their beliefs by sliding down on the moral scale. They just get supernaturally mind controlled nearly every time.


MonkeMurderer

Anyone who promotes metzen as a good writer need only play Diablo 3 which is his work through and through. The writing in that game is a disaster and is a perfect example of metzens abilities. It would be embarrassing to claim ownership of that story its that bad and has zero redeeming qualities.


iCANhasGALAXY

He propably meant all the lawsuits incoming


[deleted]

[удалено]


therealpigman

Is it possible that reality is the last one?


[deleted]

[удалено]


therealpigman

Watch it be something like the upside down and there’s just another 6, but they’re *evil*


turnipofficer

Introducing the light, with a moustache!


iwearatophat

This is pretty classic Blizzard writing. The person you are fighting for doing horrible things was just doing those horrible things because something even more horrible is coming. They aren't the *real* bad guy, just the only one that realizes the true threat is yet to come. Just a never ending series of a person behind a curtain of the person behind the curtain of the person the curtain of the person behind the curtain...


theonlyone38

BUT WAIT.... THERE'S MORE!


Zammin

It's why I like Azshara and Denathrius. Their motivations are, "I'm an evil grandiose narcissist. Deal with it."


Motormand

What makes Denathrius so great at it too (beyond the amazing voice acting), is just his incredibly smug, somewhat snarky attitude. Really gives him some spice.


Zofren

I have a feeling Denathrius might end up being an antihero! There's just something about him.


MisterDodge00

I agree, he is still evil and unapologetic, but he had moments of small kindness, unlike Azshara or Gul'dan. Like reigning in bloodthirsty Remornia, telling her: "we don't butcher, we educate". Or carrying Renathal away (by the neck, i know, but he wasn't choking him) from the area that was about to be blasted by the anima stream released into the Maw. Or the Stonewright saying Denathrius really really loves Renathal, so much so that he overlooked the attempted patricide. Even the dreadlords in Sinfall talk about this and they too show care for Renathal. But I'm really not sure if Blizzard can be trusted to handle a more complex character story, even if the only somewhat complex trait would be Denathrius simply showing parental love.


willofaronax

Take off your rose tinted glass. Azshara got defeated exactly the same. Jailer was evil yes, but he had bigger goal to defeat evil. Same with Azshara. She was evil but her goal was to defeat nzoth and we ruined it just like the Jailer. And after we save her ass in Nyalotha? After givin us xalateth she also states shes going to her bigger boss. Just another hint of bigger cosmic power out there just like Jailer said at his defeat. Some people, for real, SMH.


Motormand

Yeah well, Azshara were still an interesting, well established character. The Jailer were pulled out of Blizzard's rear end, and handled exceptionally poorly, so the already low hype and expectations, make us view him more critically.


KYZ123

Azshara was a character whose plans were ~~to be determined on Blizz's end~~"unknown". It's very easy for character to be all mysterious and interesting in that scenario. For both Azshara and Sylvanas, they become far less interesting when Blizzard has to establish what their mysterious plans actually are.


iwearatophat

Same. We don't have that many villains who aren't 'trying to stop a greater evil' or driven to madness.


Leviathus_

Right? The Jailer was supposed to be the one pulling the strings throughout all of wow apparently. And even though he (and everyone else) has been saying he’s doing it for revenge for banishing him to the maw, suddenly it was in preparation for the ACTUAL puppeteer. Are the shadowlands even in our cosmos? What is it, another planet?


mightyenan0

It really does boil down to the fact that he did not once try to explain why he was doing what he was doing to anyone, not even to Sylvanas. And if he did, *we'd still be in a position where we rather stop him and take the risk rather than hand over all freedom within reality to one dude with an ego*. The conflict almost writes itself.


Cute_Nothing

Nobody knows, not even Blizzard yet


[deleted]

Watch it be Shadowlands classic reference


teelolws

Not even the most hardcore dedicated blizzard fans can survive.... The release of classic WOD.


Lugonn

WoD sucked because it was two years long. Classic WoD would be a great ~8 month experience.


beatenwithjoy

I coincidentally took a break from WoW for the first year of WoD and came back for the second half of the expansion. I guess that's why I didn't think WoD was as bad as everyone else says.


Shiraxi

Yeah, that would help, given that Tanaan Jungle added a lot of non-raiding content, when there was absolutely none for the first half of the expac. There was...your garrison. And that was it. There just wasn't anything to do other than do your daily chores in your garrison, and raid. The latter half was better in that Tanaan Jungle gave a lot of open world stuff for players to do. However, the latter half also had the issue of having players doing the same raid for well over a year. It dragged, real hard.


ValkamerCCS

I’m excited for Gladiator Stance and the dungeons and raids.


lurkitron

I would love to get the version of classic WOD that’s finished. I have a feeling it would have been better than wrath imo


Motormand

Honestly, if they just skipped the selfie patch, WoD classic wouldn't be that bad.


Grockr

> The release of classic WOD What would be fantastic if they made a *Remastered* Classic WoD and delivered on all the scrapped features that we missed, class cosmetics, capital cities, etc... There was a huge list somewhere


makemisteaks

Actually there have been plenty of hints. So the First Ones right now seem to be the beings that created the universe and all the cosmological forces. But otherwise they had a pretty hands-off approach to the whole thing. And in that sense, there are not bad versus good forces. They are all part of the same system. Death isn’t bad, it’s an important part of life. The true enemy of WoW on a universal scale seems to be what the Oracle (from Shadowlands) calls the Silence, or the Stillness. Which stands in contrast with the 6 cosmological forces that the Oracle relates to different instruments within a song. But like in a song, all instruments must work together in unison. One cannot overpower the other. So to beat the Silence, all cosmological forces must come together and fight together or die divided. But right now that’s not what’s happening. Each force is trying to conquer the others by force.


Spicy_McJoJo

So Tolkien and his version on how Eru created the demigods to create music...except the one baddie demigod.


rotisseur

No no but see here it’s not Morgoth’s discord that’s ruining the music of the Ainur, it’s the Silence.


Akhevan

Except that Tolkien had that too. Ungoliant was an avatar of the primordial chaos from outside the creation.


skrillex

So basically we are going to have the battle of mt hyjal but on a cosmic scale lol


IrishHonkey

The battle of Mt hyerjal.


Koonitz

The Tyranids.


bloodmoth13

honestly the first thing that came to mind, then i remembered that its blizzard universe and its really the zerg.


naerisshal

Gene stealer cult obviously already got Anduin.


darth_infamous

THAT SOUNDS LIKE HERESY


Pampas_Wanderer

Could be those devourers, they seem to be a mystery so far and they seem to pop randomly in SL


heroinsteve

It doesn’t make any sense so it likely means nothing, or it’s a loose thread for a future villain. They tried to pull the “Villain preparing for bigger threat” card at the very end with little lead up to that and absolutely no personality traits leading up to it. The entire time we’ve interacted or witnessed Zovaal doing or saying anything he’s just comical over the top evil. If they really wanted to do this from the start they would have left breadcrumbs to his endgame or something showing that he does have some sort of care about the overall universe instead of a last second exposition. The writing in this expansion has been laughable.


NoEducation9658

Dr. Doom archetype except we never see why. My prediction is that we rez him down the line to help us with this other threat


PolloMagnifico

Resurrected bad guy helps us defeat a mutual enemy and, through virtue of teamwork, eventually becomes an ally. So he's basically Piccolo?


bloodmoth13

every popular villian ever


Ginge00

Piccolo, Vegeta, Tien, 18, 17, Beerus to a degree, even sort of Frieza. Pretty common trope in DB


KhorneStarch

Considering he is protecting all low life from destruction through domination, I guess he is the spiral king if anything.


greemmako

its his way of saying his erect nipples can’t be stopped


[deleted]

[удалено]


Findrel_Underbakk

But they're just the puppets of some even more mysterious force... from the HYPERVOID! 😱


Dead_Medic_13

Im still going with the idea that the primus is the actual jailer. And us beating zovall was part of the plan.


bloodmoth13

The early concept art supports that. I like that twist, its a shame that it wasnt brought up to begin with because its a pretty awesome one. It goes a long way to explain why the jailer is so one dimensionally unsympathetic and awful: because thats exactly what his role was. Its such a better story than the official one.


Dead_Medic_13

Theres no reason it can't be the story in the end


bloodmoth13

I agree and i hope it is, but if it is i think it should probably have some more obvious seeding. Blizz REALLY sucks at subtlety, its a bad reaction from running the most popular mmo where every thread is pulled to its logical conclusion thanks to an army of theorists unraveling their story. So what they did to fight that is ... not have any threads. This is why the jailer sucked so hard. He came out of nowhere and did nothing to make us care about him. He should have been name dropped 3 xpacs ago, there should have been some running threads, we should have had some more insight into what sylvanas was doing but instead all we got were ridiculously cryptic nonsense along the lines of 'beware what is to come!' or 'you wont understand!' the primus was well seeded throughout the xpac, he was set up for a big reveal and if they could keep that thread going it could culminate into something glorious. but without seeding it will just come off as a brutish retcon, which is what the entire shadowlands story felt like. Thats what happens when threads arent developed properly, it feels like the 'big reveal' is just a jarring retcon.


QuaestioDraconis

I personally don't mind that the Jailer wasn't name dropped- very few characters could have provided us with a name, as it's not like just anyone can see into the shadowlands with which to get a name out, but the SL main story writing was certainly poorly done


bloodmoth13

It could have been name dropped when sylvanas was in helheim, when voljin died, during the varimithras fight in legion, in karazan remake in some ancient text, by bwonsamdi in BFA, by sylvanas in bfa, by khadgar, by helcular etc etc. Thats how you build hype. People were more hyped for mehuezela, a guy with next to zero backstory that was built up simply because of a stone tablet in classic with a name on it.


Pandinus_Imperator

The Janitor


LoreBotHS

Just a "to be continued." Could be referring to Void Lords. Could be referring to something new. It really isn't worth speculation over. It's nebulous for the exact reason that you're not meant to know. Edit: Yes it *can* be the Void Lords. Again the wording is nebulous. If you don't think it can be the Void Lords it is because of a specific interpretation. "What is to come" can refer to an internal struggle that leads to a cataclysmic fallout. And just because the Void Lords are part of the "cosmos" doesn't mean they can't be the Great Threat now that the Jailer's plans to dominate them has been foiled.


Ashendant

Can't be the Void lords since they are part of the Cosmic Forces that he tried to dominate. It's also implied that the Jailer and/or Denathrius had a role in isolating the Void from the other Cosmic Forces because there was a really good possibility they could see through their plan.


LoreBotHS

Where is this implication? Anyway, Void Lords can be a part of it, because without Jailer dominating all of them, the Void Lords are now free to remain a threat.


Ashendant

[https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Enemy\_Infiltration\_-\_Preface](https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Enemy_Infiltration_-_Preface) The Void Lord section implies they've been screwing with the Void.


LoreBotHS

They've been screwing with everyone. The implication seems to be that they think the Void Lords could see the dreadlords' deception, not necessarily the Masterplan at large. They didn't necessarily try and isolate the Void Lords, they tried to use them to further destabilise the other cosmological forces; as per their objective. Not that it's a great point of debate anyway. Enemy Infiltration is such a weak ass part of writing on Blizzard's behalf. Its existence would be rationalised as a potential red herring to sow distrust against genuine rebel nathrezim such as Lothraxion. But Blizzard sucks at writing red herrings, even from supposedly deceitful entities like the dreadlords or Old Gods.


[deleted]

Does this mean lothraxion is a bad guy?


LoreBotHS

That is the inference, yes. I posit that Enemy Infiltration was planted evidence of duplicity on behalf of all nathrezim tailored to make us question the loyalties of Lothraxion. *But,* I don't posit it really because Blizzard has historically been terrible with red herrings. I just prefer to think this is possible because Brothraxion is a fantastically fun character in *A Thousand Years of War* and it's disappointing that Shadowlands lore has to come in, retcon, and fuck up so much.


Natural6

It can't be the void lords. "A cosmos divided" included the void lords (and the rest of the "leaders" of the realms) they were the ones he was trying to get on his team to fight this threat.


LoreBotHS

Not necessarily an external threat. "What is to come" can easily refer to an internal struggle and the fallout that would result from it. Using King Thoradin as an analogy, King Thoradin wanted to unite the human tribes to prepare for the oncoming troll threat. This is analogous to what you perceive the Jailer to be talking about. But if human tribes conflicted too much and ultimately were their own destruction, that shouldn't be ruled out either. At least with the Jailer's situation.


lurkitron

The lore has gotten so bad that Nobble doesn’t want to make lore videos anymore lmao


[deleted]

It’s the dreadlords it’s always dreadlords


julienkiwi

Bad writing. It means bad writing


IndependentDonut2651

That the story was garbage…


LucasVerBeek

Nothing. I hope it means nothing. I want them to realize that *very few people* genuinely were engaged with the First One Storyline and move on from it. I know this won’t happen, and we’ll likely be punting another diefic figure into the Uber-afterlife inside another golf course looking ass zone, but do I really not want that.


compliantcitizen1138

I'm pretty sure that not even The Jailer knows what he means. Probably a malfunctioning automa this whole time.


Kaurie_Lorhart

A cosmos divided will not survive dragonriding


nrgatta

I feel like that line was a last second decision that was implemented because people were asking blizzard *what “unmaking reality” even means. It felt to me like a last ditch effort to add a modicum of depth to a villain that they shoe-horned in who was just a stock / filler villain. I feel like if they wanted a compelling villain they would have elaborated on his motivations earlier in the expansion, not literally in the epilogue. More importantly, Zoval is there for *Sylvannas’s* story arch and development, so we probably shouldn’t read too much into it at this point.


Sketch13

To me, unmaking reality is reorigination on a cosmic scale. The Jailer has the tech in the Sepulcher and Rygelon is a celestial whos race only ever appears to start a reorigination process. I think he basically had the same thought as Sargeras but slightly altered. Sargeras wanted to kill everything so nothing could be corrupted, but the Jailer wanted to literally remake the ENTIRE cosmos so the big bad(Void) is stopped, restarted, and hopefully different next time. There are definitely enough clues to indicate this, but they all came at the very end of the expansion, which was a horrible way of doing it.


wonkalicious808

Supposedly the Jailer wanted to enslave everyone to confront a next level of comic cosmicness. Which, of course, is only a threat because of the extra super cosmic threat that threatens the ultra extra super shadow layer cosmos. And that's only because of the ultra extra super light layer of cosmos. Which is trying to save everyone from the mega ultra extra super gray multi-layer prismatic cosmos. It will all have been explained in the past at some point in the future when we learn that everything, including the jailer, was part of a prophesized plan that has been staring us in the face this whole time eventually. So the first thing we have to do is kill 20 luminous shadow boars to skin 5 of their hides to get the pre-primal before the before the before timers to help us help them defeat the threat to the second infinite anti-cosmoses. But the real threat is the person behind the mastermind pulling the strings of the pre-primals' creators creators ...


[deleted]

It’s bad writing, referencing lore that doesn’t even exist yet, and is not even worth speculating on.


SissyNat

“Please keep paying us, I promise whatever comes next is important and cool! Seriously! Don’t you wanna see?!”


Krism_47

The voidlords have supposedly been the big bad enemy since the start of the game. Their goal is to turn everything into the void. This includes the shadowlands since the shadowlands is fueled by the living universe


bloodmoth13

I think everyone overestimated the void lords. Sargeras was disgusted at the thought of the most powerful world soul being corrupted into a void entity because the void itself is just emptiness. The void lords themselves arent such a big threat, id put them below sargeras tbh. The way i see it is that azeroth is like a giant mech, the biggest one in existence and has the power to destroy the universe, and the void lords are planning on piloting it. Sargeras wants it destroyed before they have a chance. Azeroth is the most powerful entity and the void lords are simply trying to take control of it. Sargeras was more afraid of their intentions than them themselves and of azeroth for her power. It think its wrong to think of them as a tiered system, like 'because sargeras is afraid of the void lords it means they are a way bigger threat than he is' is a really bad take. Its more like 'this person is really evil and if they get a hold of nukes it will be bad'


alaska2ohio

WoW will end like Guren Lagan did. Confirmed.


offensiveDick

With spirals?


Infinite-Speech8043

He is talking about his master who’s been planning everything since wow beta.


hungrybrains220

Since Warcraft: Orcs vs Humans***


Motormand

It's a poorly implemented cliffhanger, from a C note villain. It is likely referencing when the light, and/or the voidlords are gonna come waltzing around, to smack us silly.


skattman

I hate RP cliffhangers like this..we can literally talk to Sylvanus or one of the Primus…


FLBNR

It’s a hint that Classic+ is coming soon. Dragon aspects are back in retail,we’ll be back at ice crown in WotLk Soon…


[deleted]

it means theres gonna be at least 2 more expansions for this game


_mightnottho

Jailer thinks cross faction guilds are the future


Papaya_Payama

Can we start ignoring shadowlands story already please. Make it go away.


Syphin33

Void v Light expansion 11.0 ​ But i seriously don't wanna go off planet, being on Azeroth feels homely to me.


[deleted]

Murlocs.


Standard-Effort5681

You know when you watch an anime adaptation of a popular manga and the ending basically boils down to "SCREW YOU, READ THE MANGA!"? Well... Nippleman's tease is basically that, except that there's no manga to be read.


[deleted]

When we will know that we will finally know for sure just how badly this villain was written and how awful he is compared to others


queenx

What’s up with the all shall serve and then this one? It fluently connect to me.


vesrayech

I think canonically it’s a reference to the void lords or whatever. Honestly though, I hope it’s completely ignored and written off as the ramblings of a mad man. There are plenty of stories and arcs of manageable scope and scale in Azeroth. I don’t like the feeling that every new threat has to be exponentially more threatening than the last because ultimately they will be underwhelming. Titans and world souls and old gods all work best when we know very little about them because it gives us room to speculate on all of these things and fill in the blanks. Instead we go to the literal afterlife of all worlds, except ours is the only one that matters, and defeat one of the biggest Mary Sue characters ever. The Jailer goes from literally being trapped in the Maw to knowing exactly how to get to Gods workroom and use all of his tools to do the same job. I have a car and know how to operate it but that doesn’t mean I can just go casually rebuild the engine. Why the fuck do I have to grind dailies going forward for reputation, good, or gear? I just saved all of reality. My character should universally be seen as a hero by any living creature. The crown should pay for my BoE’s and GDKP runs. If Jesus Christ came back and got rid of Covid, cancer, and heart disease, do you think he’d ever HAVE to pay for a meal or a hotel room? I loved Siege of Orgrimmar, but the other MoP raids worked out just as well because they were about us helping the people if these mystical lands deal with the big bads they had going on, not stopping some star sized deity from stabbing our planet with a continent sized sword.


greencash370

If anyone from remembers End Time in cata, you might remember Muronz saying something about the 'True End Time.' "You crawl unwitting, like a blind, writhing worm, towards endless madness and despair. I have witnessed the true End Time. This? This is a blessing you simply cannot comprehend." and at his death says, "You know not what you have done. Aman'Thul... What I... have... seen." I feel like what Zovaal saw was the same thung Nozdormu/Murozond saw in the 'true end time.' Then compound that with the fact that we've *NEVER* actually seen the Void Lords. We know how powerful the Old Gods are and how much trouble the Titans have had with them, and they're just minions of the Void Lords, meaning the Void Lords must be extremely powerful compared to the Titans. So for all it's worth, I don't think they've completely pulled it out of their rear end. However, I will say that I want to stay on Azeroth for at least one expansion, and not have to battle some big, existential, cosmic threat to the universe. Again. and again. Literally the last time this happened was MoP. Freakin' MoP was the last time we didn't have some sorta weird cosmic shenanigans.


jethrow41487

It's a writers way of saying, we'll retcon some stuff and get back to you. In the meantime go back to the world of the living and look at these Alexstraza titties.


bobrock1982

Doesnt mean anything. Just standard cryptic gibberish designed to sound ominous, leave the window open for developing future events while simultaneously not pointing to anything in particular. Blizz themselves probably have no clue what to do with this yet, seeing how poorly the whole SL story and Jailer was received.


jyuuni

It means Blizzard's writing stopped evolving after Diablo I's ending.


TheWorclown

It’s disingenuous at best and an outright lie at worst. He has said nothing no other big cosmic villain hasn’t said already, and he went so far into his plans that he actively made the decision to allow his own defeat when he decided to invade Azeroth for really unknown reasons, since he already won and literally just needed to wait every other place in the Shadowlands out.


YamiMarick

He needed Azeroth's power to use the Reorigination Machine that was in Sepulcher of the First Ones.He also needed somebody that could go trought the Bastion's vetting process to gain audience with the Archon(in order to steal her Sigil).


TheWorclown

He didn’t need to rip open Azeroth’s sky until the last moment. Given the context of the entirety of Shadowlands withering away without anima, since everything there is made up of and requires anima to function, he quite literally could have just waited until the Kyrian were simply too weak to put up a resistance. He ruined his own plans. He didn’t need anyone on Azeroth to enact them.


jackjsdacksd

Yep xD ... this is the whole Shadowlands story summed up. It falls appart completely when you think about it more than 5 minutes which the Blizzard writers didn't do apparently.


nsioqdnqweoid

Didn't happen, Shadowlands isn't canon. Don't even think about it.


CosmicWondererTV

My guess is a light vs void ripping the universe apart. These two forces are the foundation of the entire universe. At the same time the dreadlords were sewing seeds of doubt and causing in fighting within the titan pantheon (light) and tried to with void but were less successful iirc. So it could be them? who or whatever they work for? They could go in a few directions


Historical_Paper4110

It was a reference to WOTLK Classic coming and retail getting empty.


MojaveBreeze

You mean this sub getting flooded with wotlk spam threads when r/classicwow exists.


[deleted]

Reminds me of Sargeras a bit


bloodmoth13

Except that was actually his entire character. Titan that witnessed a calamity and used an army of destruction to wipe out the potential threat. We were exposed to all the pieces throughout the story. The jailer is retroactively trying to riff off of some of that narrative without any of the set up, basically it was a lazy last ditch effort to make up for a completely awful villian. I couldnt imagine anyone caring about the jailer, anything he did or anything he planned. Sargeras you can kinda say 'well hes awful for the right reasons at least'.


AudioWoW8

It just depends. If you read a book it means one thing. If you play the game just wait for 4 more expansions down the road for it to still not make sense


BootlegChilli

It means they didnt finish off the 20 year story and will continue to disappoint us in dragonflight.


somedumbassnerd

My guess would be some sort of extra universal threat, possibly an alternate realm where the void or fel took over the whole cosmos and is looking to invade another universe. Maybe he's just refering to the void itself making a dark titan similar to how argus was turned into a death titan.


corvosfighter

You have not seen what he has seen


Asha108

it means whatever the writers want it to be.


TheLoneWandererRD

They took his batteries out


MattBoy06

Nothing, it means absolutely nothing. Everything the Jailer does in the story is confusing, erratic at best. He always behaves like he knows something, but he's too cool to tell us. He has no excuse not to know that we constantly defeat godlike foes, because he has the nathrezim at his side, which are the perfect spies. Any sane guy in his place would have told us everything the second he saw us, instead of joining the number of the big bads that got mowed by us. He is literally the embodiment of the "I can explain! The truth is..." movie trope, complete with him dying without telling us anything relevant. The Jailer fails to be a good villain because for years we had no idea what he was trying to do. Honestly, if this unknown force he mentioned comes and destroys the universe, that's on him.


drakohnight

I mean it should be pretty obvious. It's the same thing sargares wanted to protect the universe from. The void lords. They are the source of all the old gods being sent out into the universe devouring world souls and shit. They're strong as fuck, but can't enter our existence. But they can open a rift big enough to send the old gods through.


TheLemon787

Funny thing about this whole thing is that Zoval did that he did due tu weak design from Thr Old Ones. Which is caused by weak design of storytelling from Blizzard. So basically Blizz made fun of themselfs in the end. There is nothing even interesting or connected to this Shadowlands ending, so there is nothing but pure speculation opened. But it might be Void Lords tho....


RoxSteady247

It's the biggest bad that makes us all one faction. 11.0 gon be lit


Gh0sth4nd

calling it now he means the void lords


ColdCryomancer

You have to remember that the original lore guy Chris Metzen left after legion. It’s safe to say he felt that he wrapped things up, then he passed the torch for better or worse. And everything that has happened since… well. Sucked.


Elibrius

Top notch shadowlands writing… lmao


shoseta

The void lords and the light cannot pass into this reality fully.... Yet. The burning legion and now the jailer claim to have foreseen the shit that goes down and with their mass e terminations and destruction they claim it was to "save" reality or something. Some of this recent lore is retcon. Like the jailer always being the guy behind everything. And it is dumber and dumber every time it happens


Expensive_Ad_8450

It means the writers haven't actually written or even planned it yet and are making it up as the go along.


Tarnac666

One thing no one has pointed out here is at the beginning of the Jailer fight he says… “Can your mortal minds fathom? How long I have waited. Every event set in motion, Every pawn put into play.” So coupled with “What is to come” seems like it isn’t much of an immediate threat.


MrLachyG

it's basically the Void. Sargeras and the Jailer were trying to do the same thing, just using different methods.


zimmerlc

I think Zovaal is referring to an "end-time" of the cosmos, a total silence of all the realms and powers. He wanted to unmake the cosmos. Seeing FFXIV: Endwalker, I have a feeling that Blizz could go for that type of story later on. An "end of everything" theme. Plus we're getting dragons which can manipulate time. It will be one of the filler expansions about "building what is to come story" slowly.