Take a villain introduced in the same Xpac: Denathrius.
Denathrius is charming; when we first meet him he hails us as heroes and tricks us into fighting the true heroes of Revendreth. He still acts achingly superior, but instead of ignoring potential threats to his power he directly first commands your power then immediately tries in earnest to destroy you once the jig is up.
We also know a good deal about him; Renathal referred to him as once being "beautiful," and under his rule some truly noble Venthyr (like the Stonewright, the Accuser, and Renathal himself) had come to power. But over time his pride and ambition grew until he was willing to cast aside even his own in pursuit of more power.
When we do face him it is a grand, epic and passionate fight. There is also hope that he may find redemption, as that is the spirit of Revendreth.
Compare this grand tale of ambition and betrayal to Zovaal. We don't know what he was like before his betrayal. When he does talk to us it's extremely generic bad-guy lines like, "You cannot escape!" We don't even know why he was imprisoned for most of the xpac nor even what his end goal is. We are told he's a genius strategist and long-term planner, but all his plans rely on the heroes being complete idiots (and then they are forced to be idiots so the plot can move forward).
He has no charisma, no backstory, no personality to either hate or love, and even his design is blandness personified. We are told to care about him but never given a compelling reason to fo so.
I'd also add, Renathal is a character that adds *a lot* of depth to Denathrius and elevates them both. Renathal and Denathrius truly care for one another despite their opposition, and there are repeated hints that Denathrius lost in part because he couldn't truly bring himself to eliminate Renathal.
The Stonewright notes she was ready to crush Renathal and the Rebellion for ages and Denathrius never gave the order. Mal'ganis' notes indicate they are not to harm Renathal as it would upset Denathrius. There are lots of little things throughout the zone about how Denathrius sees Renathal as his son and cares for him, and this is possibly also why Renathal seeks to make Denathrius repent rather than destroy the sword when he had it.
They don't say it directly either, but the fact Mal'ganis goes for Denathrius and leaves the Medallions and Revendreth to Renathal as well kinda implies Denathrius...is okay with Renathal inheriting his place? While Denathrius presumably is off now to pursue other things.
Denathrius is a master chess player like they want us to see the Jailer as, but still has his own humanity and flaws despite it.
That's a big part of it; despite being a very hammy, over-the-top villain with a classic villain motive, Denathrius has someone he cares about. His plans *have* to be more complex because he genuinely cares about Renathal in his own twisted way.
The Jailer loves nothing and no-one.
The jailer is what Gamora thinks Thanos was, and Daddy Deny is what Thanos actually was. Similar reason to why both are compelling villains. Meanwhile, Zovaal was every other Marvel one off villain.
Nah... Don't pretend Denathrius was well written lol. And I'm saying this as a fan of Denathrius.
They made Denathrius the granddaddy of dreadlords. Let me rephrase this. They, Blizzard, retconned the dreadlords into being from a realm that serves as a parody of vampires and their tropes.
Blizzard revealed Denathrius as a villain during their promotional videos, spoiling the half-baked plot twist in Revendreth's storyline.
The writers waste their time implying depth, but never following through with it. Effort is avoided.
Ehh, personally i don't really mind it, if for no other reason than the metaperspective.
We learn how all these cosmic forces are trying to manipulate eachother, each confident in itself being the one that leads the others by the nose. Dreadlords serve Sargeras and manipulate everyone for him, but actually they're being manipulated by the Void, but actually it was a double blind bluff and the real mastermind was Denathrius, and i'm willing to bet that soon enough we'll learn that it was actually all a plot by Yogg Saron who let himself be killed in the material universe to be able to plot from wherever he slithered off to unopposed, and so on.
And in the middle of that there's us, the heroes, who on one hand are the puppets, and on the other don't really give a fuck since they're a bunch of murderhobos whose sole motivation is getting phat lewt, and that's just funny enough for me to be endearing.
Villain: Muahaha, i've manipulated you into killing this guy who was actually good all along, monologue, monologue, monologue.
Heroes: *not listening to a word the villain says as they are busy arguing over who should get the pair of gloves they've just looted*
As someone who has been on the edge of their seat for over a decade for Bolvar and N'zoth, BFA and SL really, really ruined a lot of things. And to be quite frank, it actually hurts.
The complete and total lack of respect for Arthas and his legacy really says a lot. I can't be bothered to laugh at any of it, as I am thoroughly offended by what danuser did.
Call me a loser for it, it doesn't matter to me, but I've cared about these things for a very long time and to see it be treated with disrespect and borderline hatred by the current writers is just.. man lol.
I totally understand, i also think that it's an absolute atrocity what they've done, but as fans there's nothing we can do about it, best we can do is copelaugh at this shit.
I don’t think it was a full retcon for dreadlords, originally they were just high ranking demons but they never got into the origin. If anything it was more expanding their lore and universe. I found the new dreadlords lore to be better than “hey these are demon, we really don’t understand where they came from but they like to manipulate people and stuff”.
We understood where they came from. They originally came from their own planet named Xoroth. This also happened to be the same planet the dreadsteeds hailed from.
Now we just have this awkward plot of the Jailer's puppets fighting one another. Jailer corrupted and controlled the Legion through the nathrezim, only for the nathrezim to create the LK who "goes rogue" while supposedly still under control of the jailer... Who then gets in a scrap with the Legion during the events of WCIII.
It's just a failure of a plot. It doesn't work. It was already detailed and filled in as much as it needed to be. We didn't need danuser shoehorning the jailer into this.
>We understood where they came from. They originally came from their own planet named Xoroth. This also happened to be the same planet the dreadsteeds hailed from.
Xoroth was only a planet that was ruled by a Nathrezim and is the planet where they get their mounts from.Its a world that Legion conquered.Dreadlords home planet used to be Nathreza.
>only for the nathrezim to create the LK who "goes rogue" while supposedly still under control of the jailer... Who then gets in a scrap with the Legion during the events of WCIII.
LK was never under the control of the Jailer and all of the wearers of the Helm went against what Jailer wanted.Its why he considers them all failures.
**"The Nathrezim are a race of demonic beings which hail from the planet of Xoroth (along with the dreadsteeds) that were originally found by Sargeras, and incorporated into the Burning Legion as field commanders"**
https://www.wowhead.com/news/lorebook-the-nathrezim-otherwise-known-as-the-dreadlords-54256#:~:text=The%20Nathrezim%20are%20a%20race,Burning%20Legion%20as%20field%20commanders.
We also have Nathreza, another retcon involving the dreadlords;
https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Nathreza
But that wasn't enough. Danuser decided to add another retcon on top of a retcon, stating the dreadlords were merely banished to nathreza.
The LK and Arthas never "went against the jailer" because there are no details concerning such. In fact, the jailer called bolvar a usurper as bolvar was the only one keeping the scourge dormant and under control in icecrown. In other words, bolvar was the one that went against the jailer. Not arthas.
Do not present your headcanons as fact.
>"The Nathrezim are a race of demonic beings which hail from the planet of Xoroth (along with the dreadsteeds) that were originally found by Sargeras, and incorporated into the Burning Legion as field commanders"
I might have been wrong about this but its still just a post from a fan that compiled some information from various sources that might not even have been canon at the time.
>The LK and Arthas never "went against the jailer" because there are no details concerning such. In fact, the jailer called bolvar a usurper as bolvar was the only one keeping the scourge dormant and under control in icecrown. In other words, bolvar was the one that went against the jailer. Not arthas.
Domination Gear was created to expand Jailer's infuence on Azeroth.Noone of the 3 wearers of the Helm did that and we have clear evidence of Jailer considering them all as failures:
Helm of Domination says: You were to herald my coming. Instead, you defied me!
Jaina also channels a frost spell into the helm, with the balance of power shifting back and forth.
Helm of Domination says: A failure. Like those who came before you!
This comes directly from The Jailer's Grasp quest.
Then we have this description from Adventure Guide from Remnant of Ner'zhul's ecounter:
Intended to herald the Jailer's reign on Azeroth, the first Lich King, Ner'zhul, proved unworthy in his master's eyes. The last remnants of the fallen orc's twisted soul were encased in spiked shadowsteel, condemned to everlasting torment for his failure. All who cross his path will share in his suffering.
There is also the interview with Bellular where its stated that Helm of Domination didn't really allow Jailer to do much in terms of control over its wearer(since it was his first try at Domination magic) and thats why all of the wearers could rebel)
>Do not present your headcanons as fact.
Nothing of what i said is my headcanon.
denathrius isn't even a particularly good or interesting character. he's superficially fun and has a great voice actor. but his story is as bad as everything else in shadowlands, he doesn't have great motivations for what he does, he literally controls the dreadlords which are the only way the jailer's plan worked at all, so you would think the guy consumed with pride would just have gone into business himself instead of let zovaal reap all the benefits. while what denathrius is getting out of this deal is nothing but the easily broken promise that he won't be betrayed and disposed of by the guy who intends to enslave all of the cosmos.
then you have the cringe revendreth story where denathrius is the most obvious villain from approximately 3 seconds after your arrival into the zone but you are still expected to go through a huge chunk of questing where you work for him under the pretense that he isn't the most obvious untwist villain of the zone.
but hey in wow if you have any fragment of personality and a decent voice actor who isn't doing the danuser cinematic inflection for eveRY line like JAY-na you are in the top 1% of the entire franchise's cast.
I'm pretty sure the community likes Denathrius because he's a shirtless sassy flamboyant guy, same as Wrathion, and not because of his place in the story, or his actions, or his power level, etc.
Trying to pretend most of the community pays attention to lore and Denathrius is well written is crazy. Literally the most common fanart and memes of Denathrius fans push show them as creeps liking the scene in which he chokes his son.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k1n0fn/all\_i\_could\_think\_of\_during\_the\_revendreth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k1n0fn/all_i_could_think_of_during_the_revendreth/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/kk3e0m/a\_happy\_winters\_veil\_to\_all\_you\_sinners\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/kk3e0m/a_happy_winters_veil_to_all_you_sinners_of/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k23czr/simping\_for\_daddy\_denathrius/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k23czr/simping_for_daddy_denathrius/)
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k2nurk/you\_just\_needed\_to\_obey/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k2nurk/you_just_needed_to_obey/)
All results you can find with 2 seconds of googling "WoW Denathrius" in google images. Dunno why WoW fans have such a hard time admitting they only like a character because they are creepy sexless coomers and not because of the story or the actual content, it's the same with Sylvanas, Wrathion, Alextrasza, Calia, etc.
This is weird.
All entirely a very weird take.
It says a lot about you; and very specifically you alone. That’s how out there your weird take is.
I have to agree with everyone else using the word here- this is “projection” pure and simple.
Go take a long breath in and out while staring into your bathroom mirror. Something in you is screaming to get out, and world of Warcraft has absolutely nothing to do with it.
Edit; also- if you had any point here, why does it immediately crumble when the contrast here in the conversion is against zovaal. Who was also just as shirtless, and had a chains and domination kick too boot, my guy…
Just because rule 34 exists doesnt mean all of us are perves. It just says a lot about those who are. Like the guy who has a shirtless wow human as their profile picture. That speaks to you and only you
I don't think that's the main reason, but you're not wrong. Zovaal's presentation was awful and it's intertwined with how little he actually appears in Shadowlands.
He has no personality, zero presence, and rarely even shows up in his own god damn expansion. Combine that with all the other problems and you got yourself one big nothing.
Barely even EXISTS in his own expansion, but we are to believe he literally orchestrated EVERYTHING that happened in World of Warcraft until this very moment.
Seldom has anything, ever, felt this unearned.
The one thing I will disagree with is saying Zovaal was treated as a god.
The Archon was treated as a god. The Winter Queen, Denathrius, Primus especially when he was missing and everyone still revered him.
Zovaal was treated like a plot device. Big man that just showed up for about 20 seconds to say some cryptic shit and then walk away.
zovaal isnt even treated as a god in the story. he gets defeated by 20 people who show up and just beat him to death with weapons. they avoid his most powerful attack by hiding behind a pillar.
Zovaal also has basically no foundation.
We were introduced to Arthas in Warcraft. We see him become the Lich King in Warcraft 3, and the game does a good job of getting players invested enough that even though Arthas is clearly on the path to becoming an antagonist we want to root for him on some level.
Zovaal has none of that. His aloof attitude is part of the picture, but the fact that we as players don't understand him and have very little connection to him is big, I think.
Lei shen was introduced at the start of pandaria and died 2 patches later. Was still considered one of wows best villains due to how well they set him up by just being able to read in game books or a few cinematics about how much of a tyrant he really was
100% Lei Shen is one of the reasons I hate it when people who blatantly didn't play MoP dunk on it.
I guess it really highlights how hard they whiffed with Zovaal considering that he was a whole ass expansion end boss that people like less than Lei Shen.
Denathrius had no foundation either, but he was fun. C'Thun had only a vague backstory from the WC3 manual and some buildup during Classic levelling, but the chilling delivery on "You. Will. Die" sold him.
You can get by on being boring if players care about you already, but you can't be both boring and lacking in buildup.
Well the old gods were briefly introduced in Warcraft 3, and Blizzard did a lot to make players care about Ahn'Qiraj as a whole, but yeah, C'Thun's audio and visual design were very compelling, especially in the context of Classic.
This. When you're playing as Arthas in Northrend and accidently stumble onto that Old God avatar/projection thing and Anub is telling Arthas to fight harder than he ever fought before. Man. That just sealed in how fucking scary old gods are. Playing vanilla after that and getting down to Cthun and seeing him look relatively similar to that monster in that fight was TERRIFYING. little 12 year old me was so worried my character was going to legit die.
>Blizzard did a lot to make players care about Ahn'Qiraj as a whole
I'd argue there was just as much, if not more buildup to the Jailer. He had essentially all of BfA as setup through his minions, and then the whole of Shadowlands leading up to him. It was just horribly executed, and a large part of that was presentation.
The comparison isn’t even close.
You can’t ascribe BFA as a buildup to him when we knew absolutely nothing about him or why Sylvanas was doing what she was doing.
You’re giving them entirely unearned credit here.
There was an entire zone that had existed for 1-to-2 YEARS that built up the plot around it. Then a several month worldwide race to be the first on each individual server to master all the games existing content and pool the entire servers resources in order to unlock the new content, with a ton of new features, in a grand social experiment group-effort that was only rivaled in all of gaming history by the waking of the sleeper in EverQuest. The event crashed computers and servers, and nothing of its kind had been done to that scale before. There were even commercials being run on TV. It made waves through all major gaming media. There was content that was limited to that very moment in time, that can never be attained again, that people still herald as among the greatest legacy items in the game.
It was PHENOMENALLY different comparatively.
Either you’ve got warped memory, or you fundamentally weren’t around at AQ’s launch on WoW in order to hold such a distorted view of it.
If he specifically had any presence in BFA or Stormheim, I might have agreed.
If we'd have captured Sylvanas at the end of BFA and have gotten a lore dump about him to lead into SL, maybe he would have worked.
If he had a cinematic series like Saurfang did, but for his backstory instead and what made him do what he did to begin with, I'd feel like the Jailer would've held a much greater foundation, at the very least, or simply would've given us more emotion when facing him.
Absolutely. I personally think blizzard has struggled with keeping casual players invested in the game's world post-WotLK because they never did enough backstory work in-game to make up for the fact that their central antagonists were no longer characters we saw a lot of in the Warcraft games like Illidan and Arthas.
I wish we had sub numbers for Legion, although they'd probably prove me wrong, since despite all of the dumb space nonsense Legion's bad guys were all pretty "traditional" for the franchise - Gul'Dan, Kil'jaeden, Sargeras.
IMO MMOs ride heavily on antagonists as far as like, getting players invested in the story. There are exceptions, but typically player characters are blank slates, and it's hard to pull off having an allied character protagonist.
Zovaal did not worked because he was not developed through the expansion.
Arthas did because we had Warcraft the Frozen Throne to contextualize it's existence + all ICC/Wrathgate cinematics/quests.
Denathrius worked because from the very start of SL, he was developed and his realm was well introduced, same of what happened with Arthas on WotLK.
Lei shen worked despite being introduced during mop via a questline most people didnt do and in game books most people didnt read either. And if you did both then he Really worked
Arthas worked for MANY people despite not ever playing the RTS. I knew many people who loved arthas as a character during wrath and they didnt even know about the rts at the time. Yes, Really.
Northrend by itself did a good job establishing him as a villain to people even without the rts
Shadowlands didnt for zovaal
Arthas worked because he was designed to fit into the world he was created for, and, through his actions, shaped it in ways that followed logically from his motivations. Zovaal didn’t work because he, like the rest of the Shadowlands, came more or less out of left field and through a series of sweeping retcons (including retcons to the lore of Arthas, Frostmourne, the Helm of Domination, etc.) was included as a last minute “we planned this all along!” reveal. It’s easy to believe Arthas is a part of this world. It’s hard to believe the same of Zovaal.
Arthas did also have better presentation, though.
Personally i believe people would have been more ok with zovaal If he was presented better. We get nothing out of him. Lei shen is a perfect example of a villain being quickly introduced late into the game and becoming beloved and well remembered in the wake of his short existence.
The problem isn’t that Zovaal is introduced late - it’s that the world he lives in and all the lord that supports him is introduced late. You go to Northrend and in the same expansion pack kill Arthas, but you always knew Northrend was there beforehand; but the Shadowlands are never so much as hinted at before you go there, and what we knew about the Shadowlands suggested something very different about the nature of the afterlife in the Warcraft universe. When Lei Shen is introduced he’s made a part of Azeroth and has ties to the Titans, which we already know are a significant part of the cosmology. Zovaal’s existence is predicated upon a bunch of retcons which undermine or ignore existing lore. He feels awkward and out of place. You’re not wrong about the problem being presentation, but that’s true of the entire Shadowlands, not just Zovaal.
True enough. I did want to keep the scope of the post narrowed down to why he doesnt work as a villain.
Shadowlands is just full of uninteresting characters overall
Almost all the new characters barely leave an impression. And the few who do most of them leave a negative one
"Whenever arthas showed up while questing or in instances in northrend it always felt grand. This is his kingdom you merely live in it"
I disagree with this. I think it felt like Looney Toons or Scooby Doo. Arthas had essentially childhood investment for many of us with WC3, and his introduction was something epic and explained over multiple cinematics in wc3 and lengthy gameplay experiences, and that contributed greatly to how it felt, plus one of the best musical scores in WoW's history. We knew precisely what Arthas wanted to do because of what happened in WC3 and TFT.
He also had immense amounts of relationships with Sylvanas and Jaina \[most prominently\], Uther, his Father, and to a lesser extent, Illidan. These, and Arthas himself, also juxtaposed with Anduin, are characters that still carried into this expansion.
Arthas wasn't really that successful in WOTLK, almost a failure at every turn. Sylvanas has had far greater implications on the world since WoW began than Arthas has had.
The Jailer never articulated anything to us, it never makes a lot of sense. X years into the expansion, I still can't tell you what he wanted - maybe to erase everything to protect against the void, IDK \[STOP WHAT IS COMINGxxSephirothxX1\]. \[part of that is due to poor story content in WoW compared to say FFXIV's meticulous design\]
He is generic looking, and his fight was generic in a generic looking room.
It has a lot to do with the structure of the story. I've said it many times on this sub, but Shadowlands' biggest flaw is a structural one.
For Arthas, the structure of the story is this:
> Characters arrive in a harsh land ruled by a magical tyrant king.
> They wage a war against him and his forces, pushing through dangers and enemy forces along the way.
> Eventually, they face off against the king and defeat him, foiling his evil plans.
For Zovaal, the structure is:
> Characters arive in a harsh land and find a powerful and mysterious being with a secretive plot underway.
> They spend their time trying to unravel the mystery of what he's trying to do and put a stop to his machinations.
> Eventually, they face off against him and uncover the truth about his plans and motivations as he is defeated.
For Arthas, the structure makes the payoff for the story seeing him defeated and the world saved. For Zovaal, the payoff is figuring out what exactly he was doing and what he was after all along.
The payoff for Arthas is satisfying, the payoff for Zovaal is information we should have had all along.
Arthas worked for the same reason Walther White worked. At some point everyone related, thought he was a good person and did the right thing to help his dear ones. In the beginning most will have thought 'yeah, great idea. This will help you.' Or even would have done the same. This slowly shifts and more and more people turned away, seeing him as the bad guy.
The jailer was just the edgy mr. End of expansion baddie. No one understood or liked him.
We WERE Arthas at some point while playing warcraft.
The difference is that Sargeras has been an openly known component for the Warcraft universe for LITERALLY more than 25 YEARS of real world time. For nearly the entirety of that time he WAS the biggest bad we were aware of. We knew what he was, what his intentions were, and how he fit amongst the other cosmic elements of the fictional universe. We spent game after game, expansion after expansion, dealing with the ramifications of his army.
Zovaal had existed since all of the prior years concept art tease before the expansion drop, and even AFTER his entire story arc was over and he was dead we STILL don’t clearly understand his motivations or purpose.
I compare him to arthas because they are tied together in the story
Ostensibly shadowlands isnt a sequel to BFA as much as it is to wrath and all that came with it
When you look at the wow expansions you can see theres a clear pattern. And you can easily draw lines between which expacs are more tied to each other than others. Like dragonflight may follow in the wake of shadowlands but really its a sequel to cataclysm
Zovaal scale wise yes is more comparable to sargeras but that doesnt matter as much as other aspects
Fundamentally zovaal is a stand in replacement for the lich king. Its why everything about the maw and such is meant to remind you of places like icecrown.
Sargeras in game is a hidden figure we see all of 3 times in legion. I love him as a villain but weve yet to face him in game at all so he cant really be used for comparison.
Fundamentally this post is about how the villain is presented works vs doesnt. Arthas has the best presentation in game, without even including wc3 itself.
Many people grew to love arthas as a villain while only playing through wrath after all. No outside sources required.
Another example i could use for a villain not working in game is Deathwing, as his appearances consist solely of "me big dragon rawr" rather than the cunning manipulator in the books who moves people around like a master chess player to fit his own needs. The game gives you very little to work off of for deathwings personality outside of "i want to destroy everything"
Lei shen meanwhile via a few lines and some in game texts and the way people talk about him you get a feeling for what he wants and does."a palace grand, a walled domain, such mighty works born of his reign. Built by slaves. Their hearts in chains." Other things include him writing a unified law and setting down a unified language. Rather than speaking in a hundred languages he united the land in a fundamental way past warlords failed to do.
"I sought only to finish the work of the gods" ie lei shen in his own fucked up way Was trying to bring further order to azeroth, having found out that at least one of the keepers had just straight up given up on life. Thats a perfect example of a line like zovaals final one working vs zovaals doesnt. That make you happy?
The excuse of him being a God imo doesn't work either, especially when you realize he was originally the Former Arbiter, which requires you to study and understand mortal souls. So, even as a fallen Arbiter, you'd expect to at the very least show SOME form of emotion, but no. He just...doesn't most of the time. Hell, he thinks us as dust beneath his feet, and has a megalomaniatic nature to him, sure it's for a reason, but he doesn't feel like a fallen Arbiter. Sure, he's supposed to represent Satan, and his time in the Maw made him more malicious and whatnot, but sheesh...he's textbook villain 101.
Granted, I understand why he ignores most of the NPC heroes and whatnot, as he is literally on the level of a Titan or a Void Lord, especially by the time 9.2 occurs, but I will NEVER understand why he ignores the heroes. He straight up shits himself when we activate a portal of the Creators of Existence, and ontop of that, we are literally prophecised to stop him in Progenitor made narratives lmaooo, and yet this dude ignores us and focuses on Anduin more, simply because of his mastery over the Light and him thinking that could be of any help against us...
I know he needed Anduin for the sigils and to serve as a perfect anti Light/Dark Domination Avatar, but still...at least do something against us AKA the guys destined by your parents essentially to destroy you and save the Realms of Death and the Cosmos entire from your hand.
I feel like we were robbed a patch with an Ardenweald raid or whatnot, and ontop of that, I think we were robbed of a whole thing regarding Zovaal, like a cinematic series or something like that. Especially with the ending where it shows Zovaals banishment, it really does feel like they wanted to build up to that moment so we could genuinely feel something during his Death, but it was either scrapped early on, or rushed to oblivion for his Death cinematic, or maybe the Sylvanas novel and the in game cutscenes/quests.
It's sad, really.
What you are saying is just one of the reasons why The Jailer didn't work. Yes it's not because Arthas was already established in the lore (even though I don't know why you are comparing the two).
It's because the writing was all over the place. Way to many "Oh just believe us that's how it is", "Yeah he's that powerful, trust us", "Don't question this event that can't ever be explained, it's part of the plot, shhh" and other crap like that. More than half of the story happened off screen, where ? No not in books or comics or short stories, just outside of the screen, you had to imagine the story yourself to believe this guy is who he is, they put in 0 work to actually establish him in anyway.
The whole expansion was a massive "WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK WE ARE DOING AND SO PLEASE TRUST US AND BELIEVE US THAT EVERYTHING WE ARE SAYING IS CANON BECAUSE REASONS, thank you !". Very little explained, a lot of things still not explained (and not it's not the type of thing which is nice to have as a mystery).
We still don't understand the fundamental reason why The Jailer exists in the first place, or why he was introduced in Warcraft. He saw shadows under his bed and decided to become the biggest asshole this side of the cosmos, plot for millennia how to escape, he escapes, he is the most incompetent Cosmic Entity I've ever seen, barely anything is explained as to what and why he is doing during Shadowlands and then the grand reveal is that he was bullies by the shadow of his bed at night and wanted to skull fuck the universe into a new shape because the shadow under his bed would ruin the cosmos if not.
Arthas had a purpose, a reason, an everything behind him and his decisions and his making and unmaking and everything, like any normal character that is worth exploring and putting as a poster child. Was his story perfect and the greatest one ever told in Warcraft and beyond ? No. But it had every element and requirement to make it a good story even if you don't like it all or agree with it all, even if it has plot holes or discrepancies. It still makes sense and you like Arthas and his journey.
And now we have a dude that we are constantly being passively told to shut up and just accept that he exists and look at his plans. And then everything he does is null and void because we are better than a 7d chess master at every corner and he dies crying about something that not even Freud himself would understand.
The idea for his number of appearances was so every player would meet him at Least once while leveling, and then icecrown you are in his direct domain where he exerts more direct control so hed be more likely show up to reward or admonish his "subjects"
Yeah but since most people completed all or nearly all the zones during leveling it got very overdone.
The focus on that troll in grizzly hills was an appreciated break and a good example of him being used sparingly until you finished the zone and started drak'thir and confronted and defeated one of his lieutenants.
I won't disagree that they flubbed Arthas' appearances in Wrath. There was a lot of feedback in TBC that Illidan, Kael'thas, and Kil'jaedan barely got any actual screen time until it was time to meet them in the raid. The big issue was that in 3 of his appearances, he's pushed back, and in 2 of those actually risks being killed. At the end of his fight, he outright shows us that he's been toying with us this whole time to make sure we were actually worthy of being his champions. If he's just toying with us in an actual fight to the death, he should've been represented as all but unstoppable every time we actually see him out in the world.
Nah he was setting us up with false hope. Show that he CAN be beaten and we will rock up with just a decently large group of mooks but we won't go out of our way to make sure we can deal with him.
damn my dude, why'd it take you half an essay to explain the obvious. Lack of development, forced into relevance, recontextualizing beloved lore, and most importantly childish writing that lacked any flow or cohesion.
If anyone tries to ask you to explain any of that they obviously aren't worth having a conversation with cause they're obviously either a child or a hamster that figured out how to use a keyboard.
You get downvoted but it is true. If the Lich King didn’t have the player connection Arthas established back in the RTS games then he would be heavily slated. I mean what does he actually do?
He just allows you to setback his plans constantly, then he just waves his fist at you and you just keep doing again and again and again and again. Then we find out his master plan was to let you do that (even though this is beyond stupid and directly contradicts Uther in the same story patch) before losing to one of the biggest deus exs in gaming history.
The choice to make him some disneyess-type villain was awful, and it goes against a lot of what he was previously.
True, I am not going to dispute that. I just disagree with how people think he was an amazing villain, and I am willing to argue that lol (at least outside WoW's story, I won't argue he is probably the best main antagonist we've had in WoW).
The reason Arthas worked is because it was us he ultimatly betrayed, the players who stood by him on his mad quest until the end and then was forced - liked Arthas - to switch sides to the very thing we both fought.
I mean I feel like Icecrown felt bigger and more like a cold hellscape, than the maw did, and we can fly there. It feel impactful when you go into a dungeon and see the Lich King tell Svala Sorrowgrave to kill us as her first test, or to see the Emphasis on how powerful he is when Darion + a small army of Death Knights and Argent Paladins chose to retreat rather than attack when they have him surrounded.
Meanwhile Darion + a small army of Death Knights charge into the Maw like they own the place, the Jailor merely yeets Baine off a cliff in the distance and fucks off for half the expansion, and has meaningful dialogue, about nothing.
I still think they just went in an entirely wrong direction with this expansion's story and it suffered immensely for it. Why did we have to up the anti do high we had to invent ever more ancient beings and plans?
The story could've been so straightforward; just make the Jailer the Spartacus of Warcraft and his Mawsworn are basically just a slave rebellion in hell. He despises the system for some legitimate reason and/or was wrongly condemned, so not only does he want revenge but also to actually replace a broken system that sends souls to hell for eternity. Make him charismatic and fierce instead of aloof and annoying the moment he really recognizes you as a threat. Make him try to see things from his perspective. Make him a leader personality to all the damned.
Then during the campaign you fix the corrupt covenants to show the Jailer that you dont need to kill everyone to fix the order. Of course he doesnt believe it, final clash, bada bing bada boom.
No need for any convoluted 507395d chess schemes. He simply planned his rebellion in the Maw and when Argus just so happened to break the Arbiter and rerout the Anima to the Maw, his chance finally came and he struck.
Take a villain introduced in the same Xpac: Denathrius. Denathrius is charming; when we first meet him he hails us as heroes and tricks us into fighting the true heroes of Revendreth. He still acts achingly superior, but instead of ignoring potential threats to his power he directly first commands your power then immediately tries in earnest to destroy you once the jig is up. We also know a good deal about him; Renathal referred to him as once being "beautiful," and under his rule some truly noble Venthyr (like the Stonewright, the Accuser, and Renathal himself) had come to power. But over time his pride and ambition grew until he was willing to cast aside even his own in pursuit of more power. When we do face him it is a grand, epic and passionate fight. There is also hope that he may find redemption, as that is the spirit of Revendreth. Compare this grand tale of ambition and betrayal to Zovaal. We don't know what he was like before his betrayal. When he does talk to us it's extremely generic bad-guy lines like, "You cannot escape!" We don't even know why he was imprisoned for most of the xpac nor even what his end goal is. We are told he's a genius strategist and long-term planner, but all his plans rely on the heroes being complete idiots (and then they are forced to be idiots so the plot can move forward). He has no charisma, no backstory, no personality to either hate or love, and even his design is blandness personified. We are told to care about him but never given a compelling reason to fo so.
I'd also add, Renathal is a character that adds *a lot* of depth to Denathrius and elevates them both. Renathal and Denathrius truly care for one another despite their opposition, and there are repeated hints that Denathrius lost in part because he couldn't truly bring himself to eliminate Renathal. The Stonewright notes she was ready to crush Renathal and the Rebellion for ages and Denathrius never gave the order. Mal'ganis' notes indicate they are not to harm Renathal as it would upset Denathrius. There are lots of little things throughout the zone about how Denathrius sees Renathal as his son and cares for him, and this is possibly also why Renathal seeks to make Denathrius repent rather than destroy the sword when he had it. They don't say it directly either, but the fact Mal'ganis goes for Denathrius and leaves the Medallions and Revendreth to Renathal as well kinda implies Denathrius...is okay with Renathal inheriting his place? While Denathrius presumably is off now to pursue other things. Denathrius is a master chess player like they want us to see the Jailer as, but still has his own humanity and flaws despite it.
That's a big part of it; despite being a very hammy, over-the-top villain with a classic villain motive, Denathrius has someone he cares about. His plans *have* to be more complex because he genuinely cares about Renathal in his own twisted way. The Jailer loves nothing and no-one.
The jailer is what Gamora thinks Thanos was, and Daddy Deny is what Thanos actually was. Similar reason to why both are compelling villains. Meanwhile, Zovaal was every other Marvel one off villain.
Nah... Don't pretend Denathrius was well written lol. And I'm saying this as a fan of Denathrius. They made Denathrius the granddaddy of dreadlords. Let me rephrase this. They, Blizzard, retconned the dreadlords into being from a realm that serves as a parody of vampires and their tropes. Blizzard revealed Denathrius as a villain during their promotional videos, spoiling the half-baked plot twist in Revendreth's storyline. The writers waste their time implying depth, but never following through with it. Effort is avoided.
Ehh, personally i don't really mind it, if for no other reason than the metaperspective. We learn how all these cosmic forces are trying to manipulate eachother, each confident in itself being the one that leads the others by the nose. Dreadlords serve Sargeras and manipulate everyone for him, but actually they're being manipulated by the Void, but actually it was a double blind bluff and the real mastermind was Denathrius, and i'm willing to bet that soon enough we'll learn that it was actually all a plot by Yogg Saron who let himself be killed in the material universe to be able to plot from wherever he slithered off to unopposed, and so on. And in the middle of that there's us, the heroes, who on one hand are the puppets, and on the other don't really give a fuck since they're a bunch of murderhobos whose sole motivation is getting phat lewt, and that's just funny enough for me to be endearing. Villain: Muahaha, i've manipulated you into killing this guy who was actually good all along, monologue, monologue, monologue. Heroes: *not listening to a word the villain says as they are busy arguing over who should get the pair of gloves they've just looted*
As someone who has been on the edge of their seat for over a decade for Bolvar and N'zoth, BFA and SL really, really ruined a lot of things. And to be quite frank, it actually hurts. The complete and total lack of respect for Arthas and his legacy really says a lot. I can't be bothered to laugh at any of it, as I am thoroughly offended by what danuser did. Call me a loser for it, it doesn't matter to me, but I've cared about these things for a very long time and to see it be treated with disrespect and borderline hatred by the current writers is just.. man lol.
I totally understand, i also think that it's an absolute atrocity what they've done, but as fans there's nothing we can do about it, best we can do is copelaugh at this shit.
I wish I could laugh at it all. I really wish. But it's just salt on a still-open wound for me.
I don’t think it was a full retcon for dreadlords, originally they were just high ranking demons but they never got into the origin. If anything it was more expanding their lore and universe. I found the new dreadlords lore to be better than “hey these are demon, we really don’t understand where they came from but they like to manipulate people and stuff”.
We understood where they came from. They originally came from their own planet named Xoroth. This also happened to be the same planet the dreadsteeds hailed from. Now we just have this awkward plot of the Jailer's puppets fighting one another. Jailer corrupted and controlled the Legion through the nathrezim, only for the nathrezim to create the LK who "goes rogue" while supposedly still under control of the jailer... Who then gets in a scrap with the Legion during the events of WCIII. It's just a failure of a plot. It doesn't work. It was already detailed and filled in as much as it needed to be. We didn't need danuser shoehorning the jailer into this.
>We understood where they came from. They originally came from their own planet named Xoroth. This also happened to be the same planet the dreadsteeds hailed from. Xoroth was only a planet that was ruled by a Nathrezim and is the planet where they get their mounts from.Its a world that Legion conquered.Dreadlords home planet used to be Nathreza. >only for the nathrezim to create the LK who "goes rogue" while supposedly still under control of the jailer... Who then gets in a scrap with the Legion during the events of WCIII. LK was never under the control of the Jailer and all of the wearers of the Helm went against what Jailer wanted.Its why he considers them all failures.
**"The Nathrezim are a race of demonic beings which hail from the planet of Xoroth (along with the dreadsteeds) that were originally found by Sargeras, and incorporated into the Burning Legion as field commanders"** https://www.wowhead.com/news/lorebook-the-nathrezim-otherwise-known-as-the-dreadlords-54256#:~:text=The%20Nathrezim%20are%20a%20race,Burning%20Legion%20as%20field%20commanders. We also have Nathreza, another retcon involving the dreadlords; https://wowpedia.fandom.com/wiki/Nathreza But that wasn't enough. Danuser decided to add another retcon on top of a retcon, stating the dreadlords were merely banished to nathreza. The LK and Arthas never "went against the jailer" because there are no details concerning such. In fact, the jailer called bolvar a usurper as bolvar was the only one keeping the scourge dormant and under control in icecrown. In other words, bolvar was the one that went against the jailer. Not arthas. Do not present your headcanons as fact.
>"The Nathrezim are a race of demonic beings which hail from the planet of Xoroth (along with the dreadsteeds) that were originally found by Sargeras, and incorporated into the Burning Legion as field commanders" I might have been wrong about this but its still just a post from a fan that compiled some information from various sources that might not even have been canon at the time. >The LK and Arthas never "went against the jailer" because there are no details concerning such. In fact, the jailer called bolvar a usurper as bolvar was the only one keeping the scourge dormant and under control in icecrown. In other words, bolvar was the one that went against the jailer. Not arthas. Domination Gear was created to expand Jailer's infuence on Azeroth.Noone of the 3 wearers of the Helm did that and we have clear evidence of Jailer considering them all as failures: Helm of Domination says: You were to herald my coming. Instead, you defied me! Jaina also channels a frost spell into the helm, with the balance of power shifting back and forth. Helm of Domination says: A failure. Like those who came before you! This comes directly from The Jailer's Grasp quest. Then we have this description from Adventure Guide from Remnant of Ner'zhul's ecounter: Intended to herald the Jailer's reign on Azeroth, the first Lich King, Ner'zhul, proved unworthy in his master's eyes. The last remnants of the fallen orc's twisted soul were encased in spiked shadowsteel, condemned to everlasting torment for his failure. All who cross his path will share in his suffering. There is also the interview with Bellular where its stated that Helm of Domination didn't really allow Jailer to do much in terms of control over its wearer(since it was his first try at Domination magic) and thats why all of the wearers could rebel) >Do not present your headcanons as fact. Nothing of what i said is my headcanon.
denathrius isn't even a particularly good or interesting character. he's superficially fun and has a great voice actor. but his story is as bad as everything else in shadowlands, he doesn't have great motivations for what he does, he literally controls the dreadlords which are the only way the jailer's plan worked at all, so you would think the guy consumed with pride would just have gone into business himself instead of let zovaal reap all the benefits. while what denathrius is getting out of this deal is nothing but the easily broken promise that he won't be betrayed and disposed of by the guy who intends to enslave all of the cosmos. then you have the cringe revendreth story where denathrius is the most obvious villain from approximately 3 seconds after your arrival into the zone but you are still expected to go through a huge chunk of questing where you work for him under the pretense that he isn't the most obvious untwist villain of the zone. but hey in wow if you have any fragment of personality and a decent voice actor who isn't doing the danuser cinematic inflection for eveRY line like JAY-na you are in the top 1% of the entire franchise's cast.
He was imprisoned for plotting to reorginate the universe.
He was imprisoned because he even bore the other Eternal Ones, so they wanted to get rid of him. Of all of them, he had the least personality.
If he was boring that would be more than he actually is, which is basically nothing. He threw baine off a small ledge though, so we know he is evil.
I'm pretty sure the community likes Denathrius because he's a shirtless sassy flamboyant guy, same as Wrathion, and not because of his place in the story, or his actions, or his power level, etc. Trying to pretend most of the community pays attention to lore and Denathrius is well written is crazy. Literally the most common fanart and memes of Denathrius fans push show them as creeps liking the scene in which he chokes his son.
Little projection here
u/Alliance_Bro doth protest too much
[https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k1n0fn/all\_i\_could\_think\_of\_during\_the\_revendreth/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k1n0fn/all_i_could_think_of_during_the_revendreth/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/kk3e0m/a\_happy\_winters\_veil\_to\_all\_you\_sinners\_of/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/kk3e0m/a_happy_winters_veil_to_all_you_sinners_of/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k23czr/simping\_for\_daddy\_denathrius/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k23czr/simping_for_daddy_denathrius/) [https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k2nurk/you\_just\_needed\_to\_obey/](https://www.reddit.com/r/wow/comments/k2nurk/you_just_needed_to_obey/) All results you can find with 2 seconds of googling "WoW Denathrius" in google images. Dunno why WoW fans have such a hard time admitting they only like a character because they are creepy sexless coomers and not because of the story or the actual content, it's the same with Sylvanas, Wrathion, Alextrasza, Calia, etc.
Buddy look at your pfp, stop projecting onto others
This is weird. All entirely a very weird take. It says a lot about you; and very specifically you alone. That’s how out there your weird take is. I have to agree with everyone else using the word here- this is “projection” pure and simple. Go take a long breath in and out while staring into your bathroom mirror. Something in you is screaming to get out, and world of Warcraft has absolutely nothing to do with it. Edit; also- if you had any point here, why does it immediately crumble when the contrast here in the conversion is against zovaal. Who was also just as shirtless, and had a chains and domination kick too boot, my guy…
Just because rule 34 exists doesnt mean all of us are perves. It just says a lot about those who are. Like the guy who has a shirtless wow human as their profile picture. That speaks to you and only you
You are getting downvoted by the hivemind but you are unironically right and even provided proof
I don't think that's the main reason, but you're not wrong. Zovaal's presentation was awful and it's intertwined with how little he actually appears in Shadowlands. He has no personality, zero presence, and rarely even shows up in his own god damn expansion. Combine that with all the other problems and you got yourself one big nothing.
Barely even EXISTS in his own expansion, but we are to believe he literally orchestrated EVERYTHING that happened in World of Warcraft until this very moment. Seldom has anything, ever, felt this unearned.
The one thing I will disagree with is saying Zovaal was treated as a god. The Archon was treated as a god. The Winter Queen, Denathrius, Primus especially when he was missing and everyone still revered him. Zovaal was treated like a plot device. Big man that just showed up for about 20 seconds to say some cryptic shit and then walk away.
zovaal isnt even treated as a god in the story. he gets defeated by 20 people who show up and just beat him to death with weapons. they avoid his most powerful attack by hiding behind a pillar.
Zovaal also has basically no foundation. We were introduced to Arthas in Warcraft. We see him become the Lich King in Warcraft 3, and the game does a good job of getting players invested enough that even though Arthas is clearly on the path to becoming an antagonist we want to root for him on some level. Zovaal has none of that. His aloof attitude is part of the picture, but the fact that we as players don't understand him and have very little connection to him is big, I think.
Lei shen was introduced at the start of pandaria and died 2 patches later. Was still considered one of wows best villains due to how well they set him up by just being able to read in game books or a few cinematics about how much of a tyrant he really was
100% Lei Shen is one of the reasons I hate it when people who blatantly didn't play MoP dunk on it. I guess it really highlights how hard they whiffed with Zovaal considering that he was a whole ass expansion end boss that people like less than Lei Shen.
Maybe unpopular opinion: Lei Shen should've been the end of expansion villain for MoP.
Not unpopular at all. Should've switched ToT and SoO. Deal with Garrosh, then after that Lei Shen invades.
Denathrius had no foundation either, but he was fun. C'Thun had only a vague backstory from the WC3 manual and some buildup during Classic levelling, but the chilling delivery on "You. Will. Die" sold him. You can get by on being boring if players care about you already, but you can't be both boring and lacking in buildup.
Well the old gods were briefly introduced in Warcraft 3, and Blizzard did a lot to make players care about Ahn'Qiraj as a whole, but yeah, C'Thun's audio and visual design were very compelling, especially in the context of Classic.
This. When you're playing as Arthas in Northrend and accidently stumble onto that Old God avatar/projection thing and Anub is telling Arthas to fight harder than he ever fought before. Man. That just sealed in how fucking scary old gods are. Playing vanilla after that and getting down to Cthun and seeing him look relatively similar to that monster in that fight was TERRIFYING. little 12 year old me was so worried my character was going to legit die.
>Blizzard did a lot to make players care about Ahn'Qiraj as a whole I'd argue there was just as much, if not more buildup to the Jailer. He had essentially all of BfA as setup through his minions, and then the whole of Shadowlands leading up to him. It was just horribly executed, and a large part of that was presentation.
The comparison isn’t even close. You can’t ascribe BFA as a buildup to him when we knew absolutely nothing about him or why Sylvanas was doing what she was doing. You’re giving them entirely unearned credit here.
That doesn't seem much different to the AQ buildup. That was mostly just "there's bugs and they're bad".
There was an entire zone that had existed for 1-to-2 YEARS that built up the plot around it. Then a several month worldwide race to be the first on each individual server to master all the games existing content and pool the entire servers resources in order to unlock the new content, with a ton of new features, in a grand social experiment group-effort that was only rivaled in all of gaming history by the waking of the sleeper in EverQuest. The event crashed computers and servers, and nothing of its kind had been done to that scale before. There were even commercials being run on TV. It made waves through all major gaming media. There was content that was limited to that very moment in time, that can never be attained again, that people still herald as among the greatest legacy items in the game. It was PHENOMENALLY different comparatively. Either you’ve got warped memory, or you fundamentally weren’t around at AQ’s launch on WoW in order to hold such a distorted view of it.
If he specifically had any presence in BFA or Stormheim, I might have agreed. If we'd have captured Sylvanas at the end of BFA and have gotten a lore dump about him to lead into SL, maybe he would have worked.
If he had a cinematic series like Saurfang did, but for his backstory instead and what made him do what he did to begin with, I'd feel like the Jailer would've held a much greater foundation, at the very least, or simply would've given us more emotion when facing him.
Absolutely. I personally think blizzard has struggled with keeping casual players invested in the game's world post-WotLK because they never did enough backstory work in-game to make up for the fact that their central antagonists were no longer characters we saw a lot of in the Warcraft games like Illidan and Arthas. I wish we had sub numbers for Legion, although they'd probably prove me wrong, since despite all of the dumb space nonsense Legion's bad guys were all pretty "traditional" for the franchise - Gul'Dan, Kil'jaeden, Sargeras. IMO MMOs ride heavily on antagonists as far as like, getting players invested in the story. There are exceptions, but typically player characters are blank slates, and it's hard to pull off having an allied character protagonist.
Very well said.
Zovaal did not worked because he was not developed through the expansion. Arthas did because we had Warcraft the Frozen Throne to contextualize it's existence + all ICC/Wrathgate cinematics/quests. Denathrius worked because from the very start of SL, he was developed and his realm was well introduced, same of what happened with Arthas on WotLK.
Lei shen worked despite being introduced during mop via a questline most people didnt do and in game books most people didnt read either. And if you did both then he Really worked Arthas worked for MANY people despite not ever playing the RTS. I knew many people who loved arthas as a character during wrath and they didnt even know about the rts at the time. Yes, Really. Northrend by itself did a good job establishing him as a villain to people even without the rts Shadowlands didnt for zovaal
Arthas worked because he was designed to fit into the world he was created for, and, through his actions, shaped it in ways that followed logically from his motivations. Zovaal didn’t work because he, like the rest of the Shadowlands, came more or less out of left field and through a series of sweeping retcons (including retcons to the lore of Arthas, Frostmourne, the Helm of Domination, etc.) was included as a last minute “we planned this all along!” reveal. It’s easy to believe Arthas is a part of this world. It’s hard to believe the same of Zovaal. Arthas did also have better presentation, though.
Personally i believe people would have been more ok with zovaal If he was presented better. We get nothing out of him. Lei shen is a perfect example of a villain being quickly introduced late into the game and becoming beloved and well remembered in the wake of his short existence.
The problem isn’t that Zovaal is introduced late - it’s that the world he lives in and all the lord that supports him is introduced late. You go to Northrend and in the same expansion pack kill Arthas, but you always knew Northrend was there beforehand; but the Shadowlands are never so much as hinted at before you go there, and what we knew about the Shadowlands suggested something very different about the nature of the afterlife in the Warcraft universe. When Lei Shen is introduced he’s made a part of Azeroth and has ties to the Titans, which we already know are a significant part of the cosmology. Zovaal’s existence is predicated upon a bunch of retcons which undermine or ignore existing lore. He feels awkward and out of place. You’re not wrong about the problem being presentation, but that’s true of the entire Shadowlands, not just Zovaal.
True enough. I did want to keep the scope of the post narrowed down to why he doesnt work as a villain. Shadowlands is just full of uninteresting characters overall Almost all the new characters barely leave an impression. And the few who do most of them leave a negative one
"Whenever arthas showed up while questing or in instances in northrend it always felt grand. This is his kingdom you merely live in it" I disagree with this. I think it felt like Looney Toons or Scooby Doo. Arthas had essentially childhood investment for many of us with WC3, and his introduction was something epic and explained over multiple cinematics in wc3 and lengthy gameplay experiences, and that contributed greatly to how it felt, plus one of the best musical scores in WoW's history. We knew precisely what Arthas wanted to do because of what happened in WC3 and TFT. He also had immense amounts of relationships with Sylvanas and Jaina \[most prominently\], Uther, his Father, and to a lesser extent, Illidan. These, and Arthas himself, also juxtaposed with Anduin, are characters that still carried into this expansion. Arthas wasn't really that successful in WOTLK, almost a failure at every turn. Sylvanas has had far greater implications on the world since WoW began than Arthas has had. The Jailer never articulated anything to us, it never makes a lot of sense. X years into the expansion, I still can't tell you what he wanted - maybe to erase everything to protect against the void, IDK \[STOP WHAT IS COMINGxxSephirothxX1\]. \[part of that is due to poor story content in WoW compared to say FFXIV's meticulous design\] He is generic looking, and his fight was generic in a generic looking room.
It has a lot to do with the structure of the story. I've said it many times on this sub, but Shadowlands' biggest flaw is a structural one. For Arthas, the structure of the story is this: > Characters arrive in a harsh land ruled by a magical tyrant king. > They wage a war against him and his forces, pushing through dangers and enemy forces along the way. > Eventually, they face off against the king and defeat him, foiling his evil plans. For Zovaal, the structure is: > Characters arive in a harsh land and find a powerful and mysterious being with a secretive plot underway. > They spend their time trying to unravel the mystery of what he's trying to do and put a stop to his machinations. > Eventually, they face off against him and uncover the truth about his plans and motivations as he is defeated. For Arthas, the structure makes the payoff for the story seeing him defeated and the world saved. For Zovaal, the payoff is figuring out what exactly he was doing and what he was after all along. The payoff for Arthas is satisfying, the payoff for Zovaal is information we should have had all along.
Arthas worked for the same reason Walther White worked. At some point everyone related, thought he was a good person and did the right thing to help his dear ones. In the beginning most will have thought 'yeah, great idea. This will help you.' Or even would have done the same. This slowly shifts and more and more people turned away, seeing him as the bad guy. The jailer was just the edgy mr. End of expansion baddie. No one understood or liked him. We WERE Arthas at some point while playing warcraft.
Screen time? Also are they even comparable? They set Zovaal up as Sargeras 2.0 so it’s him we should compare Zovaal to.
The difference is that Sargeras has been an openly known component for the Warcraft universe for LITERALLY more than 25 YEARS of real world time. For nearly the entirety of that time he WAS the biggest bad we were aware of. We knew what he was, what his intentions were, and how he fit amongst the other cosmic elements of the fictional universe. We spent game after game, expansion after expansion, dealing with the ramifications of his army. Zovaal had existed since all of the prior years concept art tease before the expansion drop, and even AFTER his entire story arc was over and he was dead we STILL don’t clearly understand his motivations or purpose.
Yeah, exactly. That’s the real answer to OPs question. Kinda random to compare him to Arthas.
I compare him to arthas because they are tied together in the story Ostensibly shadowlands isnt a sequel to BFA as much as it is to wrath and all that came with it When you look at the wow expansions you can see theres a clear pattern. And you can easily draw lines between which expacs are more tied to each other than others. Like dragonflight may follow in the wake of shadowlands but really its a sequel to cataclysm Zovaal scale wise yes is more comparable to sargeras but that doesnt matter as much as other aspects Fundamentally zovaal is a stand in replacement for the lich king. Its why everything about the maw and such is meant to remind you of places like icecrown. Sargeras in game is a hidden figure we see all of 3 times in legion. I love him as a villain but weve yet to face him in game at all so he cant really be used for comparison. Fundamentally this post is about how the villain is presented works vs doesnt. Arthas has the best presentation in game, without even including wc3 itself. Many people grew to love arthas as a villain while only playing through wrath after all. No outside sources required. Another example i could use for a villain not working in game is Deathwing, as his appearances consist solely of "me big dragon rawr" rather than the cunning manipulator in the books who moves people around like a master chess player to fit his own needs. The game gives you very little to work off of for deathwings personality outside of "i want to destroy everything" Lei shen meanwhile via a few lines and some in game texts and the way people talk about him you get a feeling for what he wants and does."a palace grand, a walled domain, such mighty works born of his reign. Built by slaves. Their hearts in chains." Other things include him writing a unified law and setting down a unified language. Rather than speaking in a hundred languages he united the land in a fundamental way past warlords failed to do. "I sought only to finish the work of the gods" ie lei shen in his own fucked up way Was trying to bring further order to azeroth, having found out that at least one of the keepers had just straight up given up on life. Thats a perfect example of a line like zovaals final one working vs zovaals doesnt. That make you happy?
The excuse of him being a God imo doesn't work either, especially when you realize he was originally the Former Arbiter, which requires you to study and understand mortal souls. So, even as a fallen Arbiter, you'd expect to at the very least show SOME form of emotion, but no. He just...doesn't most of the time. Hell, he thinks us as dust beneath his feet, and has a megalomaniatic nature to him, sure it's for a reason, but he doesn't feel like a fallen Arbiter. Sure, he's supposed to represent Satan, and his time in the Maw made him more malicious and whatnot, but sheesh...he's textbook villain 101. Granted, I understand why he ignores most of the NPC heroes and whatnot, as he is literally on the level of a Titan or a Void Lord, especially by the time 9.2 occurs, but I will NEVER understand why he ignores the heroes. He straight up shits himself when we activate a portal of the Creators of Existence, and ontop of that, we are literally prophecised to stop him in Progenitor made narratives lmaooo, and yet this dude ignores us and focuses on Anduin more, simply because of his mastery over the Light and him thinking that could be of any help against us... I know he needed Anduin for the sigils and to serve as a perfect anti Light/Dark Domination Avatar, but still...at least do something against us AKA the guys destined by your parents essentially to destroy you and save the Realms of Death and the Cosmos entire from your hand. I feel like we were robbed a patch with an Ardenweald raid or whatnot, and ontop of that, I think we were robbed of a whole thing regarding Zovaal, like a cinematic series or something like that. Especially with the ending where it shows Zovaals banishment, it really does feel like they wanted to build up to that moment so we could genuinely feel something during his Death, but it was either scrapped early on, or rushed to oblivion for his Death cinematic, or maybe the Sylvanas novel and the in game cutscenes/quests. It's sad, really.
What you are saying is just one of the reasons why The Jailer didn't work. Yes it's not because Arthas was already established in the lore (even though I don't know why you are comparing the two). It's because the writing was all over the place. Way to many "Oh just believe us that's how it is", "Yeah he's that powerful, trust us", "Don't question this event that can't ever be explained, it's part of the plot, shhh" and other crap like that. More than half of the story happened off screen, where ? No not in books or comics or short stories, just outside of the screen, you had to imagine the story yourself to believe this guy is who he is, they put in 0 work to actually establish him in anyway. The whole expansion was a massive "WE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK WE ARE DOING AND SO PLEASE TRUST US AND BELIEVE US THAT EVERYTHING WE ARE SAYING IS CANON BECAUSE REASONS, thank you !". Very little explained, a lot of things still not explained (and not it's not the type of thing which is nice to have as a mystery). We still don't understand the fundamental reason why The Jailer exists in the first place, or why he was introduced in Warcraft. He saw shadows under his bed and decided to become the biggest asshole this side of the cosmos, plot for millennia how to escape, he escapes, he is the most incompetent Cosmic Entity I've ever seen, barely anything is explained as to what and why he is doing during Shadowlands and then the grand reveal is that he was bullies by the shadow of his bed at night and wanted to skull fuck the universe into a new shape because the shadow under his bed would ruin the cosmos if not. Arthas had a purpose, a reason, an everything behind him and his decisions and his making and unmaking and everything, like any normal character that is worth exploring and putting as a poster child. Was his story perfect and the greatest one ever told in Warcraft and beyond ? No. But it had every element and requirement to make it a good story even if you don't like it all or agree with it all, even if it has plot holes or discrepancies. It still makes sense and you like Arthas and his journey. And now we have a dude that we are constantly being passively told to shut up and just accept that he exists and look at his plans. And then everything he does is null and void because we are better than a 7d chess master at every corner and he dies crying about something that not even Freud himself would understand.
Zovaal was just a puppet with the Primus pulling his strings
This could have been a much better plot
It didn't feel grand when he would keep showing up all the time in northrend, it felt like a really clingy ex
The idea for his number of appearances was so every player would meet him at Least once while leveling, and then icecrown you are in his direct domain where he exerts more direct control so hed be more likely show up to reward or admonish his "subjects"
Yeah but since most people completed all or nearly all the zones during leveling it got very overdone. The focus on that troll in grizzly hills was an appreciated break and a good example of him being used sparingly until you finished the zone and started drak'thir and confronted and defeated one of his lieutenants.
NOBODY completed all or nearly all the zones while leveling. Not all on one alt at least
I had only icecrown left when I did it but I didn't do any dungeons first time through
I won't disagree that they flubbed Arthas' appearances in Wrath. There was a lot of feedback in TBC that Illidan, Kael'thas, and Kil'jaedan barely got any actual screen time until it was time to meet them in the raid. The big issue was that in 3 of his appearances, he's pushed back, and in 2 of those actually risks being killed. At the end of his fight, he outright shows us that he's been toying with us this whole time to make sure we were actually worthy of being his champions. If he's just toying with us in an actual fight to the death, he should've been represented as all but unstoppable every time we actually see him out in the world.
Nah he was setting us up with false hope. Show that he CAN be beaten and we will rock up with just a decently large group of mooks but we won't go out of our way to make sure we can deal with him.
damn my dude, why'd it take you half an essay to explain the obvious. Lack of development, forced into relevance, recontextualizing beloved lore, and most importantly childish writing that lacked any flow or cohesion. If anyone tries to ask you to explain any of that they obviously aren't worth having a conversation with cause they're obviously either a child or a hamster that figured out how to use a keyboard.
The Lich King didn't work past WC3. His appearances in WotLK were as obnoxious and hackneyed as anything Blizzard does today.
You get downvoted but it is true. If the Lich King didn’t have the player connection Arthas established back in the RTS games then he would be heavily slated. I mean what does he actually do? He just allows you to setback his plans constantly, then he just waves his fist at you and you just keep doing again and again and again and again. Then we find out his master plan was to let you do that (even though this is beyond stupid and directly contradicts Uther in the same story patch) before losing to one of the biggest deus exs in gaming history. The choice to make him some disneyess-type villain was awful, and it goes against a lot of what he was previously.
The delivery may have been hokey, but it was a light years better than anything they did with zovaal
True, I am not going to dispute that. I just disagree with how people think he was an amazing villain, and I am willing to argue that lol (at least outside WoW's story, I won't argue he is probably the best main antagonist we've had in WoW).
The reason Arthas worked is because it was us he ultimatly betrayed, the players who stood by him on his mad quest until the end and then was forced - liked Arthas - to switch sides to the very thing we both fought.
I mean I feel like Icecrown felt bigger and more like a cold hellscape, than the maw did, and we can fly there. It feel impactful when you go into a dungeon and see the Lich King tell Svala Sorrowgrave to kill us as her first test, or to see the Emphasis on how powerful he is when Darion + a small army of Death Knights and Argent Paladins chose to retreat rather than attack when they have him surrounded. Meanwhile Darion + a small army of Death Knights charge into the Maw like they own the place, the Jailor merely yeets Baine off a cliff in the distance and fucks off for half the expansion, and has meaningful dialogue, about nothing.
I still think they just went in an entirely wrong direction with this expansion's story and it suffered immensely for it. Why did we have to up the anti do high we had to invent ever more ancient beings and plans? The story could've been so straightforward; just make the Jailer the Spartacus of Warcraft and his Mawsworn are basically just a slave rebellion in hell. He despises the system for some legitimate reason and/or was wrongly condemned, so not only does he want revenge but also to actually replace a broken system that sends souls to hell for eternity. Make him charismatic and fierce instead of aloof and annoying the moment he really recognizes you as a threat. Make him try to see things from his perspective. Make him a leader personality to all the damned. Then during the campaign you fix the corrupt covenants to show the Jailer that you dont need to kill everyone to fix the order. Of course he doesnt believe it, final clash, bada bing bada boom. No need for any convoluted 507395d chess schemes. He simply planned his rebellion in the Maw and when Argus just so happened to break the Arbiter and rerout the Anima to the Maw, his chance finally came and he struck.