the problem with having villains reveal that they're actually anti-heroes trying to fight the REAL threat is that you just think how much violence could have been avoided with some freaking communication.
THIS Jailor talking about changing our reality and that azeroths soul will feed his vision just mere moments before actually telling us (vaguely) what is really going on. So damn tired of this narrative.
To say "people" don't like the cinematic may be true, but "people" doesn't mean all of the over 1 million people who play the game. "People" refers to that group of very vocal people in every video game who hate the game they are playing. That is the very group that other CCs like Preach, Asmogold and Bueller see as their bread and butter. They make a living getting clicks while validating the rage of those "people". But to say that's a consensus of the 1 million players is nonsense. We have no idea what the majority of people think because most people don't tell us. It's a video game, not the Great American novel. If that's what you are looking for, go read Moby Dick or the Grapes of Wrath.
@@chrisaustin9949 At least a few of these "people" just want their game lore to be "good" again (though what that "good" is might not actually be good)
I've always thought that they should've done an "Afterlives: The Maw," showing us Zovaal's motivations, his treachery and his imprisonment. That would have changed A LOT, and maybe this very cinematic would have felt a lot different.
My only guess is is Blizz didn't want anyone rooting for the antagonist. He's the bad guy, that's LITERALLY all that mattered, as if it truly was some saturday morning cartoon.
honestly for me the ending was okish, it gives a bit more of character to the jailer and making him a bit more sympathetic before dyng is not a bad beat, the bad thing is it sets up the next carrot to follow "I was only trying to prepare for what is to come guys" why the primus didnt fucking ask what is to come? why did they just chigged him into the maw without asking???? what are the eternals doing!!!I knew they were incompetent but jesus christ...
I firmly believe Blizz needs to embrace "dramatic irony", and stop trying to keep the audience in the dark. The CHARACTERS can be in the dark, fine. But the AUDIENCE, us, well...this shit needs to stop. 2 years later and we don't know what or why he was trying to accomplish. Ugh.
@@TheNynax She wanted to 'free' us from the system. I think she has no clue what the jailer meant with this bigger threat. Even if i am so annoyed of the current sylvannas, i hope they use the split soul, "mommy is back home in her own body" ark as good as they can to fix her. Sylvannas was a good character, but then got screwed by the writers (doesnt matter who exactly). lets hope the old sylvannas can be gone now too, like arthas.. and the new one gets judged by the arbiter.
I remember seeing a while ago, someone on Reddit posted an alternative approach for The Jailer that was way more interesting, and fit better with Sylvanas' thing about this world being "a prison". He was the Arbiter, and found out one day after seeing a soul he'd peeked in on before in the world of the living, that souls weren't actually going where he assigned them according to their nature, but where they were 'needed' according to some criteria baked into The Design/Purpose. So he did some digging and realised it had been happening since the start. And he couldn't do anything to change that, despite being The Arbiter, so he smashed his seat, and did all sort of crazy stuff to try and 'fix' it before the other Eternal Ones told him to cut that out. Because they had no desire to kill him (since that sure as hell isn't part of The Design), or even knew if they could, they dethroned him. And either his efforts to "fix" the system, or his being removed created a now growing flaw in the Shadowlands, in the form of The Maw. Now after all his time in captivity, stewing in his bitterness, he's less concerned with fixing what he still sees as a flawed system, than he is with just tearing it ALL down in an act of spite. He's free because the actual death of a nascent titan in Argus (something that should return to the realm of Order, but was so damaged by the Legion, and the Pantheon forcing it's incarnation, that it no longer fit into the Design) has effectively crashed the entire system, creating the chaos in the afterlife of the expansion. None of this crap about "what is to come", none of this rewriting of WC3 lore to make 'Thanot' the ultimate bad guy of EVERYTHING, or "Nathrezim did it", but someone threatening the entire cosmos in a bid to rebuild a system they may or may not be correct in assuming is fundamentally flawed. And Sylvanas is along for the ride, because she's seen The Maw, and knows all Forsaken have a one way ticket there because of them being Undead.
I wish we could have followed the jailer around during the whole expansion and he could have shown all the "strings" he was pulling. I wanted to see his plans and feelings So I could have liked or hated him.
Like in Wrath - LK here, LK there, LK everywhere! But at least we knew very well who the guy was, what was his story, motivations, goals and plans. Here - Jailowho?
Id like to add that not only did they not do that for the jailer but also they didnt do it for sylv. Its totally not clear when and how she sided with the jailer
In Wrath of the Lich King, we've seen the main villain from early on - in some quest lines, in 5-man dungeons.. because the devs had realized it's disappointing to never meet the big bad evil guy behind it all before you reach the endgame, at the very end of an expansion after defeating 10 other raid bosses. And the LK was a very charismatic, very hands-on villain. Meeting him throughout the whole storyline made him so compelling. But the developers seem to have forgotten this lesson since 2007. Sure, the Jailer shows up throughout SL, but mostly to give cryptic, unexplained lines about his plans, make cheesy villain threats in his Batman voice, and otherwise do absolutely fuck all.
Also Arthas is constantly failing. We see him fail at almost anything he touches the moment the heroes arrive, which is still the better version of "getting you here was my master plan all along".
For what it's worth, I remember watching something where they made Arthas like that in WotLK because Illidan wasn't (i.e. you never heard of peep from him), but then afterwards they were like shit we went too far and dialled it back with Deathwing (somewhat). So it's just a pendulum of baddie/no baddie.
I think its worth noting that what you are describing is the responsibility of a game designer or a creative director (like Afrasiabi). For the most part, even the most obnoxious developer is only at fault for following someone else’s decisions.
it made it feel like you almost got him several times throughout the expansion. but even as near as you came to him in drak tharon or toc, he always was miles away. and when you finally enter his domain in icc, it was so much more satisfying when you, at long last, can actually face him in combat and defeat him
@@Alex-pb7rq I used the word "developer" here as an umbrella term for the whole team involved in making expansions. But yeah, obviously the design leads make these decisions.
@@ethanhunsaker9363 nobody enjoys a cliffhanger especially with 0 actual explanation... me seeing argus in the sky after the end of ToS cinematic made me times more excited about the future even when i knew exactly where i'm gonna go and whos gonna be there... it didn't diminish the hype, it actually elevated it. in this case it's hard to be hyped for nothing... so i don't see the point
@@edelleaa oh im not saying its a good decision to hide the reveal im just pointing out that its what they're doing. I would love it if they weren't always trying to do puzzle box storytelling and actually just did character-motivated stories instead. I think the writers have lots of good threads in shadowlands but the main thread has really painted itself into a corner for no reason.
I think for me the most frustrating part of the end cinematic is it makes it pretty clear that Blizzard never had a real plan for the Jailer's motivations and goals. They created him as a baddie just for the sake of having a baddie. It is insane to me how the Jailer the we received ever made it out of production. That is extremely worrying for how Blizzard operates internally.
100% agree… 😅. I can’t believe this is the ending they had planned. More like there was no plan and they finally just rushed everything and threw it together bc they had to. I get covid but come on. Smh.
A baddie for the sake of having a baddie would have been a better ending than this, honestly. A big problem with the story is that they threw in a plot twist at the end that they barely foreshadowed, just for the sake of having a plot twist. Smacking the audience in the face with a plot twist from nowhere and awkwardly spilling the villain's backstory at the last minute when this was supposed to be the end of the story arc is just unsatisfying. I think it would have been way better if we just had a simple, predictable "The main villain we've been fighting all expansion loses, good guys win, yay" ending, like Burning Crusade, Cataclysm, MoP or Legion. Short, sweet, and to the point. And, like Legion, if you must have a sequel hook, don't make it a last-minute plot twist. Just say "Oh hey, look, there's another threat/a new problem now".
A tidbit that I read the other day, the Primus wasn't in the cutscene because he supposedly doesn't have a cinematic model like the other 3 leaders do. So they just.. used a shadow.
That would be the worst outcome of the lot. That would mean that Blizzard purposely just wanted to save on costs and time and it wasn't for any other purpose
@@Wyrmshield Possibly time rather than cost, could be an indication that they deprioritised aspects of this patch to work on the next expac like with WoD
@@4F0xSake It would make sense with the visual style of the flashback too. Make it grainy, blurry, dark and with a nondescript background and boom, you jammed that shit out in record time.
@@floreaciprian9742 obviously this is personal, but I found WoD worse, once I hit max level I basically didn't play the expansion again til the .2 patch then unsubbed again because it went on for so long.
I remember the covenant pre-launch videos that made all of them look really rotten and off, mind-control Bastion, Ventyhr corruption, Necrolord civil war and the Nightfae extinguishing beloved Ursoc. People thought the Jailer might actually be the good guy who was wrongfully imprisoned or something and that was why Sylvanas joined him. Then they spent the entire expansion seemingly wanting to brush that under the rug and painting the Jailer as comically evil. Then we get this, where they seem to try to paint shades of grey back in and tease but refuse to reveal a greater purpose. It irks me because it's missed potential, both because shades of grey might have been more interesting AND it might have made Sylvanas look less stupid if there was a legitimate goal that drew her and Denathrius to the Jailer. Instead it was all very nebulous and it seemed absolutely idiotic that Sylvanas only clocked on that maybe the Jailer wasn't a great ally at the 11th hour. If they'd actually given him a motive that might outweigh how nefarious he was maybe it'd be easier to swallow, instead it just makes Sylvanas and the Jailer look idiotic.
TBH most of those early impressions were people deliberately misunderstanding what was told about the Covenants. Mostly by those who didn't want (to see) Sylvanas as a villain. The path to become a Kyrian is mentioned multiple times to be a choice, you can quit the training (at least when there was still a connection to Oribos) and go to another Afterlife. Kyrestia all but warned Devos not to investigate Uther's wound further, as she knew it could corrupt her. And the civil war in Maldraxxus, the Night Fae having to sacrifice souls to save others, and of course the corruption in Revendreth, all that was a result of the Anima Draught and the Jailer turning people to his side and have them betray their Covenants.
@@Nathanyel I disagree, especially on the Kyrian thing where the entire Kyrian covenant arc in Shadowlands is them AGREEING that things need to change and their "path" isn't working properly. The corruption in Revendreth isn't the result of an anima drought, Denathrius has been working alongside the Jailer for far longer than the drought since his dreadlords set up Arthas, the drought started around the end of Legion. The only contestable things are the civil war in Maldraxxus not being the covenants fault, but honestly, half of their houses were fine going along with Kel'thuzads power grab, so I'm not sure you can whitewash that as not being corrupt when you have a covenant who's theme is willpower and strength and most of them seem to have interpreted that as might is right in the absense of their head-honcho to be the mightiest and keep them in line. The Nightfae is entirely due to the drought, but don't tell me Blizzard choosing to have the Winter Queen snuff out a beloved lore character in a pretty cold manner wasn't intentional when you're sat here watching Tali videos that spend good minutes stressing over the state of the skybox in a half-arsed cinematic. The covenant videos were the way they were for a reason, none of them painted the covenants in a strikingly positive light. Not a single one.
I liked the Jailer from the promo looking crazed and deranged instead of what he ended up being as some calculated villain who thinks he knows better than we do.. Why wasn't he just a giant soul devourer that we had to stop because he wanted to eat all the souls before the void did etc.
sorry all villains need to be sympathetic, so we feel bad and like them more because god forbid we have one that is just evil and not some misunderstood bad/good guy
I mean, I agree with the idea of a deranged Jailer would definitely be more interesting. It would certainly be fun to see him gibber and gabble and plot and scheme, with Denathrius just sat there like "I agreed to help, I pledged loyalty, and this is what it's got me. I regret everything." Sylvannas could be the only one in the Jailers whole group who genuinely believes in his plan, whilst everyone else are opportunists taking advantage of his lunacy, or deeply regretting their decision to ally there. Proper Mad king vibe.
@@SpodsandRockers yes agreed! The Jailer wanted to absorb as many souls as he could, and agreed to share with Denathrius to help continue the “anima drought” as a facade to filter more souls to him in the Maw. Sort of a more terrifying thought to be denied your rightful judgement in the afterlife because of an all consuming Maw that just hungers. He could have just been so ambitious he wanted to consume the ultimate soul, Azeroth’s. He didn’t need the added layers of pretend depth and “unmaking reality” to still be threatening and need to be stopped. Just an ambitious devourer like a worse Gorefiend.
@@ravenanarchy8894 I mean FFXIV balances this perfectly. Of the 3 major antagonists in Endwalker, 2 are pretty damn sympathetic and make you feel for them. And then one is just "fuck it I'm a selfish asshole, I know I am, and I will literally slaughter thousands just to get another shot at a one on one with my best friend/worst enemy"
Coool... The jailer only did that bad thing because he wanted to protect the cosmos from that BIGGER more BADDER thing. Like... almost every villain in warcraft history. Definitely didn't see that coming..
The whole inversion thing between Sargeras’ version and the Jailers version has big “copy my homework but change it a bit so it doesn’t look like you copied” energy to me. And while details have been different, it’s still disappointing that they basically keep with the “I did what I did to deal with a bigger threat” so many times.
Be prepared, I think we're going to get a few more of these before we find out what that "greater threat" is. I expect we'll have to stop *at least* a villainous entity of The Light (maybe Yrel, maybe a Naaru) trying to convert everything to defeat some greater evil. I don't kniw what they'd grab from the Emerald Dream or how they would represent the Arcane *side eyes Khadgar*. You could get me to believe we have three more of these followed by the reveal of the Biggest Bad; maybe Eldrazi, maybe some crazy god, maybe a Tyranid-like all-consuming devourer from another universe. Who knows?
I didn't read much into Jailer's lore, so he might've done that too, but at least Sargeras _told the others about his plan first._ (and had an unreasonable reaction when they disagreed, but that's besides the point)
@@just_gut All I know is that if they don't at least show us a real hint of this greater threat before the next time they mention it - something, ANYTHING, though I'd lean towards a destroyed world or something - it's gonna fall flat again.
to be fair, it makes sense more than one people goes tyrant madmen to stop something so incredibly horrible it looks like a good alternative. That said, at this point it should be something more than a vague reference to justify those means. And those madmen should actively try to reach up for help instead of 100% going evil. One thing FF does right is actually introducing future threats time before they finally show up, making their eventual appearance something organic that the audience could say "I should have expected that". WoW has killed so many stuff so quickly at this point they don't even introduce them, and they need to take their plot in another direction and pace.
Taliesin: "I like the 'what is to come' ending." Zovaa: "I am going to dominate and destroy everything after planning for a billion years - to prevent something even worse coming along that is going to dominate and destroy everything." No, this is garbage Tal, sorry. Maybe if they bothered to put in the effort of explaining more of what was happening, they might have pulled it off. But the way it was presented on screen - nope. And I ain't reading a book in 2 years that will 'redeem' it.
Absolutely agreed. I would say it was fun at first and it would keep the audience guessing and speculating and stuff. But when you do something like that for years, it just becomes extremely frustrating. Like, what the hell? I want to properly follow the full story, and I'm getting bits of it and then I'm told 'well, now you wait for another million years until the next expansion'. And this is especially bad now since the production of new expansions is so severely slowed down due to COVID and other stuff. Although, I don't really see how COVID might be affecting it now to be honest... Blizzard should have just kept employees instead of sacking them, maybe then we wouldn't have to wait for ages.
@@EugenikusPro Yeah, I could see how COVID could have been a factor during the first six to eight months of the pandemic (which, need I remind, started _before_ SL released) but after that the excuse falls flat. I suspect one of two things happened - either the teams were used to having the boss hanging over their shoulders and were incapable of doing anything without constant supervision or the most talented either were sick of working for the hacks and/or saw the writing on the wall with the state investigation and used the opportunity presented by not being under constant scrutiny to go job-hunting.
The Jailer's greatest efforts could not prevent the dire inevitable fate - of Microsoft becoming the controlling power over their universe. If the Jailer had only been able to convert their universe to a mashup of Bejeweled and AmongUs, perhaps things could have been different. 😅
No, that's realistic. Many bad deeds in RL are based on just hat. You people watched so many stupid animes, that you don't even know anymore what a realistic plot and normal behaviour is, it seems.
At this point i dont even know if these comments are ironic or not. Theres actually people trying to say the fac tthat he had a motive means the says he didnt do anything wrong
@@MeandMonkeyLP It's mostly laughing to keep from being angry at one of Blizzard's most (over)used villan tropes. We've seen it quite a few times in WoW that villans are let off without punishment or arguably too gentile of punishments for their actions to the point it comes off as comically bad writing.
Coming in 11.0, we go activate the Jailer because of the "next baddy" that he predicted and planned to defeat for a million years just happens to show up 18-24 months after his plan failed. We'll have a short quest line where he learns to be a team player, and boom 11.1 the Jailer is an NPC who we trade currency in for raid gear.
I already believed that the flashbacks were existing footage the Blizzard repurposed and had originally planned to be used to "investigate" the Jailer and provide some sort of depth to his character. But as soon as Tali pointed out that the Primus was left out of the cinematic because he probably wasn't revealed yet, it's 100% confirmed.
No that part about the primus is just because they don't have a working cinematic version of his model. Nothing else. You are grasping at straws to justify your anger
It surprises me the domination runes are kept on his robot form. Domination magic marks not only your flesh but your soul. Primus created something that brands you forever.
"That was fucking lame" is the best description of this terrible, pile of poo, mountain of mammoth turd, ending. Asmongold has been saying since the beginning "why are we trying to kill the jailer? What did he do?" And we still dont know. He was the arbiter..did he siphon souls? Did he misdirect souls? If you know nothing of Arthas and the lich king, this xpac is meaningless. And if you do know, then its still meaningless. It is so bad that you would have to put forth effort to make something so tragically bad.
Well the why are we trying to kill him bit of explained. All the souls are being used and disappearing. And since we're good guys, that's a no no. It's a basic problem, but at least we had a reason to fight him. But not knowing why he did it is frustrating. Even if and I assume we do, find out, it'll be after the expansion. Which is odd
@@luckduvell I don't think it's unfair to *inform* one's opinions using Asmongold's (or most anyone else's) video content. Isn't that what we're doing by watching T&E's videos? (Not trying to be antagonistic or anything, I'm sorry if it comes off that way)
@@mattmeeks2640 it just feels a bit cringeworthy when i see him mention it specifically. It feels like 'my lord and savior' told me this and now im gonna repeat it
I think they had to make another episode of Afterlives and it was just about Zovaal and how he became what he is right now . Just like this one but at the start of the expansion. It would be awesome . But ... shame on u blizzard
The story is obviously not at its end at all and when you bring up what is feared by Zovaal long before, it would completely change the whole story. The gods don't care all too much about mortals, some even less than others. Zovaal does not try to explain anything to mortals as a human would not try to explain anything to ants - even less when the human just wants to get rid of the ants. The main reason he is an antagonists is, that he simlpy does not care about mortals and sees the whole life/death circle as a dangerous waste of energy. He fooled Sylvanas into thinking, the he just wanted to improve the system for mortals. Instead he just wanted to abolish it together with all the mortals inside. That's completely fine. It's not fancy, sure, but that's the point:: in contrary to all the pretty idiot plans you see in movies today and anime and other videgames, which are shiny but absolute dumb and not making any sense, this goal is simple, it's realistic, it's typical. But people are so used to the bullshit stories, that a normal one is just not exciting enough anymore.
@@miriamweller812 We just need to know who is Zovaal and what is going on with him . This would made us to care about him . They tried to made him be behind most of the great things in wow history to make us care about him . But they just f..ked up with that. We need an afterlife episode just about Zovaal like what they did with WoD
@@ShadowtheRonin How about explaining it to any of the other first ones then? Or maybe one of the people he was working with, like Sylvanas who was apparently a super important general of his? No? I mean look, you can try to rationalize Zovaal's decision not to talk about what he is trying to do at all, ever, and the fact that we never found out any other way either all you like. That doesn't change the fact that not giving the player any insight is *bad storytelling*.
I personally thought it was brilliant like the finale of Game of Thrones Season 8. Everything was wrapped up so neatly. Did you know that the Jailer was actually named Zovaal and he was the original Arbiter?
I 100% agree with the "how I got here" take. That flashback, along with other flashbacks like that, should have been played throughout the entire expansion, to help us better understand who the Jailer actually is and why he is doing what he is doing.
Yeah, this really made me realise how a relatively small change could have dramatically improved the how the story was told. Yes, it would have been a bit of a trope, but that's because it's a recognised convention that works to convey a story.
Personally, i think this cinematic could easily have been twice as long. We've waiting this long to learn more about the Jailer, and this was Blizz's opportunity to send him off with some interesting backstory that could have made us look at the shadowlands expansion in retrospect and gone "Ohhhh, now we get it." It's unfortunate that when the jailer is most interesting is the short part of his ending.
Wish the jailer just wiped the raid when we got him to 5% and wins. Takes over the shadowlands and remakes death how he wants it and sends us back to Azeroth Gives Blizz license to update whatever they want
It's an absolutely terrible idea to make it so the raid litteraly doesnt matter. The point is that the players skills and tactics allow them to TRIUMPH over impossible odds. It doesn't work if he just wins anyway litteraly what would be the point
you know, if this was planned out from the beginning it would've been so easy to highlight the Jailor's loneliness and separation from everyone else. If this really was "I'm the only one willing to do what needs to be done" it would've made for a better, way more introspective villain who also would've fit the theme of death so much more. A villain who still could've had compassion for his brothers and sisters in the pantheon, who could've seen the domination part as just a necessary, neutral thing rather than kinda seeing it as an evil goal in of itself.
Yeah i don’t know. I think this was more of a “ok let’s hurry and end this story” patch. I think we will pick up the cosmos story in 11.0 and let people rest for a few years. I truthfully believe we just need some cosmic entity to say “here is what these big baddies all believe is going to happen” and “this is how we need to stop it together”, otherwise the story seems to erratic and jumbly
This is exactly how I feel about it, it’s like you just pulled my thoughts from my mind and put them in words! Thank you hahaha. It feels even more rushed to me than the Warlords of Draenor ending, and that’s saying something. I hope we get a good expansion in 10.0
I very much think that the threat that Zovaal and N'Zoth/the Void Gods foresaw (presumably the "7th force" from Firim's texts) could remain an ominous menace remaining in the background, even as we deal with/explore the other Forces, to re-establish the "mystery" that people feel has been dispelled for the Titans, Old Gods and other cosmic powers. (Of course people will then bitch about "forgotten" story threads 🙄) Zovaal first took action about this threat eons ago, and it could be even more eons before this threat actually becomes imminent. We might never get an expansion truly focused on this threat - it would be _mentioned_ occasionally or brought up as a hook for other forces having "creative differences" within their realms, as Tali theorized, but would otherwise not be a driving force of the story. My theory (very unsubstantiated so far and based on single words in the Firim texts) is that the 7th Force is one of Annihilation and Consumption - not just the Chaos of Disorder, not just the Infinite Possibilities and Hunger of the Void, but utter and complete destruction of the universe(s). Possibly something the First Ones separated from the world we know, so they could have more stable environments for life and other entities to develop. The Devourers would be somehow connected to this, creatures born from tiny incursions of the 7th Force, mixing with the matter of, in this case, the Shadowlands. And that would be about the extent we will see of that Force, occasional incursions by Devourers and similar creatures.
The initial speech about how long he waited to have every piece of the board exactly where he wanted is the final proof that sadly blizz really want us to believe that the jailer is a freaking IQ 100000 genius and NOT an opportunistic villain like T&E speculated.
I'm not so sure that Zovaal kept the threat from the other covenant leaders. I definitely read the scene as if they knew what's up but just didn't believe and/or care about it, particularly because of what Denathrius says regarding another way. In addition, the other covenant leaders' comments are all vague enough to imply that they took issue specifically with his method of implementation -- "madness," "this end," etc. Also, why am I strangely attracted to the decommissioned robot version of the Jailer? That jawline! Those cheekbones! Those broad shoulders! Meow! I'm also shocked by how forceful the attempt this cinematic makes to the Jailer sympathetic is... considering I haven't really seen any of that throughout the entire rest of the expansion.
The idea of zoval as arbiter seeing a soul that saw something that scared the shit out of him would've been a really great motivation/inciting incident. Especially if we saw what that thing was in this cinematic...
That would actually have been a really cool flashback. Zovaal as the arbiter talking to a soul that tells him something terrible is to come. And then how he slowly got more corrupt to justify his idea of domination being the only way out
Yeah. Honestly, they couldve went a much different route after legion. The burning legion wanted to face a bigger threat, being the void lords. At the end of legion we even encountered more and more void entities. There was amazing buildup. And then suddenly in bfa we forget about all that and have a faction war first. Then oh hey void stuff with nzoth returns! But lets just squeeze that in and give it a rushed ending, and now suddenly we go to the shadowlands because sylvanas went crazy without a clear motive and joined a random villain who has zero lore and character.. just to end up at a horrible version of "theres a bigger threat!" HM, YOU MEAN LIKE BACK IN LEGION, WITH THE VOID LORDS? No? Maybe? We dont know! It frustrates me.
1. Stripped Zovaal looks identical to Stonehead and you cant convince me otherwise, so "Hi,...uh,bye worst bud" 2. I cant wait for the reveal of the cosmic threat that we will have to fight 2 or 3 expansions from now and an attempt to justify what Zovaal was going to do by trying to press the reset button.
Zovaal was someone who for a billion trillion years saw every single life that ever died, reviewed every memory and every deed of every creature passing through the Shadowlands. And with this came an incredible insight for how reality was faring. What did he see that made him think it was all doomed? Personally, I think it just adds up to what's been mentioned. Every cosmic force is preparing for the eradication fo cosmic forces, and thus is applying their own defense in the form of 'I know better than everyone else, better us in charge than them.' Thus, cosmic war, right? So Zovaal's take was this: If we recreated reality to have to do what he said, then he just wouldn't allow any wars, and thus all of existence would be saved. Sure, he would be the ruler, but it was't about hubris. He was already the judge for all souls. It would just result in absolute rule and, technically, safety for us all. The end of free will would keep us around for eternity. But that's not an existence worth having. One shackled and chained and incapable of original thought or independent action. I hope other cosmic forces see this, and then see that it is we, the people of Azeroth (whether we were originated here, planted by cosmic forces, invaded or crash landed) always win in the end. I would hope that someone out there backs us up as contenders. Perhaps it's simply the paranoia that 'everyone is out to get you' that encites everyone going out to get everyone else. And maybe our history with war and tragedy and love and honor can convince the forces of the universe to just kind of chill...
my problem with it is that he contradicts it with "eternity end" does he want to save reality? or does he want it to end? is what "is to come" some sort of "fate worst than death"? and oblivion would be better? that is what creates the infinite dragon flight too, the end of time where everyone is dead and or miserable is the good alternative according to them so, we don't even know if he wants to preserve or to erase, we know he wants to rewrite it in his image, but for what? if it is to create a forever land where we keep existing in peace, even if without free will, then it will be a new eternity, not the end of it.
The problem is that Zovaal's agents (ie: Dreadlords) are the ones that caused all of the conflicts within the system of realms. Without *his* interference there wouldn't be huge destructive forces like The Legion to worry about. Zovaal created the problem, he *is* the problem, so he can't be a necessary solution. Equally, there wasn't any issue for him to despair over until after he was in the Maw and sending out his Dreadlords to trigger the conflicts and then watch them gradually play out over eons... How long did it take for The Legion to effectively sterilise the entire mortal plane? The only way that any of this makes sense is if Zovaal had eons of prescience, seeing a distant future in which reality is destroyed (by some terrifying, but so far unidentified force) ... so he falls into the meme of the "self-fulfilling prophesy" (so very wise and intelligent) and unwittingly engineers *eons* of events that steer that reality toward its destruction... Blizzard could try to use that justification, possibly even well, except it's not in the story at any point.
Just an absolute train wreck. Living down to my worst expectations. It could possibly have been worse - skipping the flashback, just showing the rift closing and dude saying “no must not beeeeee” and calling it a day, basically like N’Zoth went out, but I didn’t think that was realistically something they’d pull here. So other than the minor blessing of it not being that, it’s about as bad as it could be. Shame, because I felt the opposite about the Anduin cinematic. I really hoped they’d turn this ship around here.
Azeroth The First One. Origin of creation, slumbering to regain its strength after locking the Old One outside of the created universe in the nothingness it came from, where it has existed since before The First. Zovaal tried to warn us, the veil is breaking, the devourers are coming through to consume all of creation & return all to the nothingness it once was. Before The First arrived. The Old One comes, will Azeroth still be slumbering when it does?
Imagine that one time you made a night elf running around the starting zone, the calming music and the sound of the spiders. Looking for your bud to quest together.... Good times, I miss them. (That's nostalgia tho)
I always enjoyed playing right up to untill Legion where i quit. Felt that was the right time.... Not really though i still played Wow classic from the beginning right up to when BC came out. 🤣 a last Hurrah.
I've always turned to you, your analysis, and your reactions for clarity, understanding, and shoring up my own reactions to the events in and around WoW. Up to and including how you broke down Sylvanas and her sudden gift of introspection. Here, however, I still can't kick the thought of Illidan, Sargeras, N'zoth, and any other bigger bad trope we've been through. I hope that this is rock bottom and that 10.0 will be as glorious as it can be. Fat human paladins, hopefully. Fat Stormwind alt bodies or Kul Tiran, idc.
I fully agree that the flashback was likely supposed to have been used at the start of the expansion, or 9.1 at the latest. There are many reasons for why this cutscene fell flat, and I think another big reason is that a lot was riding on this cutscene. The Jailer was inserted into everything and built up to be this mega big bad who was actually behind all of our woes, with very little actual character building being given to him, leading to many unanswered questions that really should have been answered a long time ago - people expected this cutscene to answer those questions, and rightly so imo, it's the end of the Jailer, if anything here is where you really should shine some light on things, but no, instead we get a mysterious "There is an even bigger big bad coming" with no actual answers being given. It's just frustrating, I don't think this cutscene could ever have delivered even half of what it needed to deliver due to the sheer void of answers that had lead up to it, but it didn't even deliver the bare minimum imo. Very disappointing, does not fill me with confidence for 10.0/1/2
I watched Bellular's video yesterday and Tali's today... I honestly loved having both the analysis and I think something that resonates from Bel's video here is that there are some elements of the story itself and details that are cool (the Lore) but definitely the storytelling missed the spot and is definitely another missed opportunity this expansion. Great analysis Tali!
I watched so many videos and still don’t get it 🤣 So he is a AI going wild? But the first once’s can see the future so they did know that would be happen? So why? And now we can go to the afterlife with just a portal, so if anybody dies we can just go there and get them back with the portal? So weird
@@SaltareObscurum once in the afterlife people are just souls, just bodyless spirits. the maldraxxi are an exception because they make meat bodies to fight with, and the venthyr are just straight up undead vampires that burn in the sun. you can go fetch someone in the shadowlands, if you find them, and maybe you can drag them back to azeroth, but they will still be spirits
@@zennim125 🤔 so that would mean youth forever, if you get older just „die“ come back as a soul and get your soul into you young body? God damn, that would be a great buisness 🤣🤣
@@zennim125 But her Body was not old or anything. I mean the normal people in wow world. If they die, somebody goes into shadowlands, bring back the soul and put that soul into a young new body. So everybody in the WoW world is overpowered bc nobody can die. Every soldier now can come back with a new life. All you need is a new body and there you go. Weird
I have a sneaking suspicion that the question asked by the Primus (as shown at 24:52) is the start of the next expansion questline. We still have 2 more chapters to go in game and just like the final Legion cinematic showed the Azerite mess in Silithus after Sargeras stabbed the world (which was the final raid ending cinematic) we got more questions than answers. I really hope the writing team are using this raid cinematic as a build up rather than a final chapter...we already had the tying up of the Sylvanas/Arthas saga which Steve Denuser aluded to 2 years ago (which in case you forgot was the Anduin cinematic).
Love how the majority of Taliesin's "analysis" is speculative reaching for what was not said or stated anywhere but only implied. As the story is so vague even he the number one Wow moral boosting channel has to make things up in his head to make all this mess make sense.
At 11:07 I have to wonder, if it's not Jailer's platform, as Arbiter didnt have platform as well. What if it's the other missing sister's of them all: Elune?
Can tell he never played WOTLK. Forge of Souls was not 'insignificant'. Forge of Souls was one of three instances that lead into the ICC raid. It was this cluster of dungeons that brought the story focus at the time (after we randomly veered off into ToC gladiator weirdness) back around to Ice Crown Citadel and had great replay-abilty and story. We saw more of the lich king in these instances than we did the entire expansion leading up to ICC and they lead the players right to the base of ICC and one of the greatest raids ever imo if not the best. They were awesome at the time and I have great memories of them. Oh one thing was bad, They brought with them the birth of Dungeon Finder :/
Exhaustion, I think is what most players are feeling. You can't look at this ending to the raid in just a bubble. The past two years saw WoW drop in the minds of so many, and for multiple reasons. I think players just wanted 'one cool thing' to show for it all. Something that would really blow everyone's expectations, instead we got more of the same.
Also, my personal take is that the flashback is in the jailers mind so unless one of the Archon or Winter Queen or Primus wants to fill us in with that exact moment. It's basically no information our characters could know or use
I quite liked that they used the Forge of Souls, thought it was a neat idea. The rest of the cinematic not so much. Your comments on The Frozen Throne are incorrect tho. The Frozen Throne was the container which Kil'jaeden put Ner'zhuls soul into and flung it down into Azeroth. The impact creating the pillar which it sits upon. Arthas had no hand in its creation.
it is a convoluted mess of retconns, both are true at first in wc3 it was nerzhul in the ice cube made in the nether and hurled towards azeroth, he landed on northrend like a comet inside that hell ice. that block of hell ice became the frozen throne, figuratively while nerzhul was inside it, and literally when arthas carved the helm out of it with frostmorne. then arthas build icecrown with the blood of yogg saron with the help of dreadlords that were now serving him, in the same way that, at the time, varimathras was serving sylvanas. the dreadlords were demons, they could both be bound and choose their masters. Icecrown is built AROUND the frozen throne. AND THEN it was retconned that the dreadlords built the whole citadel under the watch of the legion, and that when arthas got there in wc3, there already was a giant metal fortress already standing. they retconned the end of frozen throne and then they retconned again so that block of hell ice is from the shadowlands, it was kil jaden that summoned it, it was the dreadlords under his orders
That last line hit hard. "He finally f*cking died" LOL *chefs kiss* Another really satisfying analysis. Thank you for contuing to do these. They help make the game more enjoyable for me.
Really good point regarding the flashback not answering the question we’ve been wanting to know since 9.0: “why?” We are all the Primus: aged, weathered and bitter as we wait for the answer. (And now just straight up old and pissed because the answer isn’t coming)
My gut reaction is exactly as you laid out here. This feels more like a beginning than an end, which is fine for setting up a next expansion, but terrible to wrap up one. Shadowlands is one big interlude with an overabundance of fan fare that amounts to really nothing in the end.
Well done, you certainly communicated what I think a lot of us were feeling towards it. However, I like the over arching "breadcrumbs" of whats coming in the future, from the "Long cycle", to imprisoning Sargeras, to the N'zoth end with Xalatath, the dagger and Wrathion but how long can we keep "foreshadowing" before it becomes plot holes or story lines that get trashed...and I don't have a lot of faith in them shoring up all of the loose ends in 9.2.5. I think you're right it will focus on the new Arbiter and Sylvanas, maybe see a closing for each covenant, but that will be it
This is so sad, the Jailer could have been an amazing villain, cuz not only do I like his voice, it's creepy as fuck, but his design is 15/10. Sadly, he had little lore, no built-up, and literally nothing.
What Design you mean? This weird AI „Robot“ or this 1990 „egdy“ Emo Armor? I mean why would a AI or whatever he was dress like a 13yo Boy from the 90s 🤣
Who is to come? If we consider what our characters have accomplished so far, I think WE are what is to come. If there's loot in it, we'll happily obliterate the entire cosmos ...
im really bad at handling toxicity, so after i encountered a post on reddit about this cutscene, reading a few comments, i just left those communities. Everyone just bickering and hateing, tearing everything down, completely baseless, unhinged and cruel. i really like these videos of you guys, because even if somethings not great, you are level-headed and fun. One can critisize without being toxic, thanks for proveing that again and again!
I just think it's funny that my phone had links to two headlines, this morning. "Famous Shipwreck Found" and "Taliesin & Evitel: Everyone Hates the Ending"
Shadowlands is the only expansion I dipped out of half way. I really hope the next expansion brings us back to azeroth dealing with a holy cult or something grounded like that.
Depending on what they do with Sylvanas, the expansion that should have had the most impact on the game going forward since we were literally in the after life, ended up reestablishing the status quo more than any expansion of the last 10+ years. Cata completely changed the landscape of Azeroth, MoP gave us escaped Garrosh who triggered WoD, WoD gave us alternative Gul'Dan to trigger Legion. Legion gave us a world sized sword damaging the world giving us the reason for BfA and BfA gave us Sylvanas turning on the Horde and the burning of Teldressel...Shadowlands gives us, what? Taelia meeting her Father and Baine developing bruises on his butt from sitting on the floor? It kind of feels like they are just going to ignore the ramifications of this expansion going forward.
Dont forget that 9.2 is mashup of planned 9.2 and 9.3 so that end of Zovaal flashback cinematic could be intended for eariler of the expansion, not the final scene of final raid. Also there is still one empty gateway in Oribos' second floor, that suggests other planned content too.
Usually a quiet fan from a far, but as a game dev I absolutely LOVED the call out at the end and am just happy to hear people recognize the difference between disliking a product vs. disliking an individual/team. It can be mentally and emotionally draining to be personally attacked for something you may not get a final say in. Thank you :)
27:30 i think the reason the primus doesnt appear in this cutscene isnt because it was intended to be at the beginning of the expansion. I think its a cost-saving measure. all the other eternal ones already have high-res cutscene models that have been used in multiple cinematics already, the primus only has his low-poly model that we see in game. depicting him in this cutscene would require creating an entirely new model for the primus and only using it for like 3 seconds of footage.
While I do try and stay positive about the game, my initial gut reaction to that second cut scene was definitely a big negative. And I've been having a few unhappy days dwelling on it. I was not expecting or wanting another cliffhanger, "the real fight is yet to come" situation. I wanted a definitive ending. Moreso than ever in this case because I just wanted to put the Jailer behind us. They have been doing this roll-over ending thing since MoP, and it's just kind of tiresome. Tali, your analysis is good. I think i agree with it, and it has actually made me feel a bit more agreeable to the situation. But my initial reaction still looms large. I really do hope the next few weeks regain my enthusiasm for the story in some way.
I'd love to have Talie as my costumer. Imagine delivering a product half broken and him making compliments about the good half of it and paying full price!
@@urbannus did you? He said the cinematic was fine and literally in the next breath he said it sucked and it was underwhelming. You can’t have it both ways
I think one thing we can all agree on, is the “record scratch” Yep, that’s me! Is one of the best things to have come out of this Shadowlands expansion!
So, basically: 1. What, exactly, the Jailer did that was "madness" and got himself punished is never explained. 2. The reason that made him do it is never explained, and when asked directly by the Primus, he doesn't say anything. If he actually is mad, why should we believe him? 3. The only way to make sense of it all is to ask "what if?" questions and then make up answers. Which is fun, but purely conjectural. So, basically, the Jailer is Sargeras 3.0, N'Zoth 2.0, or the Lich King 4.0. Jesus, Blizzard. Get a new shtick. We know what he wants to do, but we still don't really know *why* he wants to do it, other than a single vague comment from a potential "madman".
Just a theory, what if the void is fighting a war against an outside force since they are at the most outer reaches and are trying to infest planets to help them.
Essentially we end the expansion with: "But there is an even *BIGGER* bad, and *THIS* big bad that you just defeated was really a good guy trying to stop *THAT* even *BIGGER* bad!" Are we ever going to see the biggest bad? Or are we just going to be stuck in an eternal loop of "Oh but there's an *EVEN BIGGER FUCKOFF BAD!"* ? Remember when the Void Lords were literally the biggest bad in the entire cosmos? Now we're being told there's an even *BIGGER* bad above them, before we even *SEE* them. I think I'd have been happier if Zovaal just did a basic Night Elf death animation/sound and that be the end. It would have been stupid and emotionless, but it would have fit with his theme as a blank slate of a character.
> Are we ever going to see the biggest bad? I think no, and that might be a good thing, and the intended outcome of this. Zovaal first took action about this threat eons ago, and it could be even more eons before this threat actually becomes imminent. So, not during the lifetime of WoW at all. _Maybe_ when Blizzard decides to do a final expansion (and no, I don't see that happen this decade) it could be the Big Bad destroying the Worlds of Warcraft.
This is what makes me really not love wow right now, we are constantly chasing after some BIGGER super-mega-gods/villains, which is not making sense for me/doesnt feel right. I was happiest with 8.0-8.2 when wow was all about regular people waging wars, maybe some loas, at max some titan experiments (you cant run away from titans on azeroth). It felt more suitable for our/my heros to deal with enemies based in the land we grow up, than some undying lands master overlords/creators of all cosmos. Also 8.3 felt forced into BfA too much.
its a theory of mine that the jailer was a last minute addition. Basically the biggest thing is that the big bad of the expansion, the central pillar of the story, was not finished in time for the announcement trailer. No one else thinks that sounds a little whack? But then there is his lack of any character and the fact that the story could have been told pretty much without the jailer to begin with. My theory is that originally the conflicts within the shadowlands were going to be driven by a number of characters but then after BFA they interpreted "we want a clear villain" as "you need to shoehorn in a clear villain no matter what your intentions originally were"
Personally, the reason why it feels so awkward and why it feels like no one knows what the jailer is doing is.. they don't. I know there is new folks in the writing team but a lot of blizzards writing for the last few years has felt like "We will figure it out when we get there." which works for like.. a zone storyline, but the entire overarching narrative is not something you throw at the wall and see what sticks. It feels like a lot of this is just going by the seat of their pants, retcon as the undo button and just going nuts. Which feels.. lacking.
Would you consider doing a 'top 10' (or alike) list of your favourite wow cinematics? Would love to hear from you a longer conversation into each one's best techniques and what makes it so well-made. Your analyses are always so thoughtful and interesting!
13:28 Is it that disappointing that they turn to their 'stone' forms when they die? Aren't humans and dwarves the result of the curse of flesh? It fits previously established lore...
The Jailor is an adaptation of the Aliens from Ridley Scott's movie Prometheus. Big bluish guy, big hipe, no character development, dissapointing ending and we are left with more questions than answers.
So finally something that makes sense. At 21:00 Taliesin points it out. "The lack of faith in anyone else." The jailor was the arbiter, he judged souls for aeons and so he knew souls, he knew his brothers and sisters and his judgement was, that no one else than him could understand and stop what is coming. So he didn't even tried to tell them, because they wouldn't understand. Maybe because he is something like a construct, makes him also lack empathy. He presented himself as a very bad guy, but he is only an artificial intelligence with no emotions.
While this ending is questionable in its quality, I've had a hidden hope from the start that Jailer is an anti-hero instead of yet another evil for the sake of being evil.
Now that we know who will be the next arbiter at the end of this expac, perhaps we will at least be given a glimpse of the Jailer as the arbiter. Like you said, it would be nice to see him viewing spirits' lives and discovering whatever it was that made him become evil for the greater good, but I am not certain we will get that. Like many have pointed out, the current formula for story telling has been leaving us with huge gaps so we continue to wonder what is going on. I get it, most story telling in media uses that formula, but they usually provide some important nuggets of information for closure while leaving some old or new ones for us to ponder on for the next adventure. Also, I am glad you brought up the weird way WOW does flashbacks. I noticed the change back during Legion with the Illidan flashback scenes. I used to like the first one when all the night elves were marveling at the Stormrage twins' birth and how Illidan had the golden colored eyes which signified his importance; the flashback was in color, which I felt was appropriate. Then, they changed it to be completely black and white, along with the majority of them, which I did not like. I already know it is a flashback, so having it in black and white diminishes the significant information we are gleaning from them, at least in my opinion. Some of the flashbacks in BFA had color, albeit generally a very faded color scheme, but oh well. Ok, my random thoughts and rants are over.
“Every event set in motion. Every pawn put into play.” The two lines that made me sell my bnet for a measly $350 in 2021 after its 13yr existence and after my fanhood that started in 1997. To hell with Invincible, Ashes, Headless, etc.! All this time I keep looking for reasons to regret that decision but the more I see the most informed takes, the happier I become with it.
Someone else commented below that it's actually viable story telling to let us the players know a lot more about the jailer and his background without having the actual characters in game know about it. Like show us some flashbacks or something to make us understand him more. I wish we had known more about him from the very beginning to make us speculate
17:15 When people talk about the similarities between Sarge, N'Zoth, and The Jailer (hell, we can even lump Illidan from BC in there) I don't think they're talking about direct parallels. At least that's not what I think of. It's more the general idea of every time you kick a big baddy in the dick in this game, their death speech always involves "I was a good guy all along! I was trying to stop the coming of the REAL bad guy!" Illidan did it referring to The Legion. Sarge did it referring to The Void Lords. N'Zoth did it referring to Death (he does say that Sylvanas intends to unleash a darkness upon Azeroth that only he could save it from so the heroes should actually bow down and serve him so they can stop this coming threat. Considering Sylvanas' role in kicking of The Shadowlands and the fact that The Jailer is trying to suck out Azeroth's soul I think it's safe to say that this is what he was referring to, not the same existential cosmic dread that The Jailer saw). And now we have The Jailer talking about (fill in the blank). My second issue goes along with the difference you point out between Sarge and Jailer: Sarge tried to convince the Titans to help but they said "Nah fam", The Jailer didn't. You'd think if he had a vision (or whatever) of "what is to come" and this threat was so grand that he figured the only way to save the cosmos was to first destroy it then remake it...why WOULDN'T he share that information with the other Power Rangers? So terrible was the fate that lies ahead that he would betray everything he once stood for and risk everything by going it alone. If the threat really is that great why wouldn't he enlist the aid of his buddies on the council? After all, apparently he used to be the Arbiter...I would have to think his word would carry some weight if he showed up to the office one day like "Holy shit! Guys, you're not going to believe this dream I had list night! We gotta do something now or we're all right-proper fucked!" But no, "what is to come" is a secret he'll apparently take with him to his figurative grave, even during his trial when the jig is up he still refuses to NOT speak in riddles. All that to say that I don't buy the take where the reason he didn't tell anyone is because his ego was too big and he refused to rely upon others. We're talking about a guy who spent the past few eons using countless puppets and pawns to do his work. Pawns and puppets he *relied* on in order to see his plans to fruition. Clearly he has no qualms about leaving work to his minions, so why wouldn't he use the power of his buddies when he first discovered "what is to come?" Surely having a council of death gods all working together would be the more logical course of action for him to take. And lastly, I take issue with the whole "a cosmos divided will not survive." If that's true then it does indeed imply that he's saying he's the real good guy in all of this, that he was acting in everyone's best interest. If that's true then why did he spend the past few eons doing everything in his power to sew chaos, strife, war, and destruction across the cosmos? Remember: all roads lead back to The Jailer. He was responsible for Sargeras' betrayal. Sarge kills all the titans, creates The Legion, and The Legion goes on to conquer or destroy countless worlds. They create The Horde and unleash it on Azeroth, further spreading war and division. He creates The Scourge which just further spreads death and destruction. And he's responsible for all the major events in the WoW storyline. Sooooooooo why is he preaching about unity when he's done so much in the name of conflict and war? I mean he's apparently been causing conflict and division ever since he saw whatever it is that had him so spooked. He *divided* the death council when he betrayed them for reasons no one knows. I hadn't even thought about your take on why the cinematic doesn't work regarding how it should have been at the beginning of the expansion instead of at the end. I was too distracted by the above listed reasons that I personally didn't like it. But now that you mention it that is actually a really good point.
Calling for the jobs of inept or incapable leaders is not a villainous thing for consumers to do. If they repeatedly fail to deliver a satisfactory product to their consumers, if the product itself fails and falters under their leadership, they should absolutely be removed from those leadership positions. Ion might be a nice guy and a swell individual, but WoW has died under his leadership and he needs to be removed as game director. Simple as that. Same with the story leads and creative heads and anyone who is a decision maker in story delivery. Does that mean Steve Danuser should be fired? Maybe. Or Christie Golden? Maybe. Whoever is greenlighting this awful storytelling needs to be replaced with someone more competent. Simple as that. When leadership fails, it must be replaced. And it is the leadership of WoW, the director, the creative leads, and the ones who are allowing this product to be published in this awful state who should be held accountable for their failings.
It's hard to know what's actually failing here. Was the story written well but then they had to go back and rewrite, cut scenes, and otherwise ruin the story? Was it handed down from above to push out what you have, just hem up everything and ship it? Without knowing what's happening behind the scenes it's hard to know where to lay fault. The biggest problem is that no one is taking responsibility, which is a frustrating thing for the players.
@@TheGerrok This is important to remember. No one knows who is most responsible for the current mess, so people are taking aim at whoever they already dislike. Or worse, whoever is available because they are the only employees whose names they actually know. :/
You stand before the first-est ones as they lay fallen. Against all odds you managed to gather and unit all the cosmic forces against them, from life to death, arcane to shadow and stop their plot to unmake reality. Only one question remains. "Why" you ask, "why did you want to destroy everything?" In their final breath, one of the first-est ones speaks. "Because if we didn't unmake reality and doom you all, you would not survive the even firster ones who want to unmake reality and doom you all. Now you are doomed...
Also "N'Zoth and and the Jailer were talking about the same threat" doesn't work either. The Windrunner comic specifically states that Sylvanas serves "The *true* enemy". The void specifically thought death was the cosmos ending threat.
So according to the enemy infiltrations pamflet we are told that the Dreadlords were sent to the different cosmologic forces in order to weaken them while Zovaal wanted to unite them and make them stronger for whats to come? Noice logic there
Another question is how did the jailer tunnel down to the anima with the forge of souls when underneath all of Northrend is Saronite (Yogg'Saron's blood) according to WOLTK Lore.
the void/nzoth were clearly talking about death in reference to "maybe nzoth was talking about the same new threat Zoval is" . The void screams at alleria during the 3 sisters comic that sylvanas "serves the true enemy"
Imagine how good the jailer's ending would have been if he had a beginning or a middle.
Or dialogue...
Or character...
Or motivation
@@spockman4250 he have that... sadly just that and we don't even know what it is...
but he have it... atleast they said so...
What do you mean, the beginning is right there, in the ending cinematic, lawl
the problem with having villains reveal that they're actually anti-heroes trying to fight the REAL threat is that you just think how much violence could have been avoided with some freaking communication.
maybe is that the lesson we still have to learn as humanity?
THIS
Jailor talking about changing our reality and that azeroths soul will feed his vision just mere moments before actually telling us (vaguely) what is really going on. So damn tired of this narrative.
@@Scattman112 yeah, it kind of makes it not so believe-able
What is this communication? Most stories can be ended by simply talking things out.
They could at least show a single example of the anti hero trying to get others involved, being gaslit, and deciding "screw you I'll do it myself."
“Reactions to the end of this raid has been mixed, but kind of how a Molotov Cocktail is mixed.” Is the funniest thing I’ve heard all day 😂
To say "people" don't like the cinematic may be true, but "people" doesn't mean all of the over 1 million people who play the game. "People" refers to that group of very vocal people in every video game who hate the game they are playing. That is the very group that other CCs like Preach, Asmogold and Bueller see as their bread and butter.
They make a living getting clicks while validating the rage of those "people". But to say that's a consensus of the 1 million players is nonsense. We have no idea what the majority of people think because most people don't tell us. It's a video game, not the Great American novel. If that's what you are looking for, go read Moby Dick or the Grapes of Wrath.
@@chrisaustin9949 oh, I absolutely agree, and I’ve no doubt that what you’re saying is true! But that doesn’t make the line any less funny to me, lol
@@chrisaustin9949 At least a few of these "people" just want their game lore to be "good" again (though what that "good" is might not actually be good)
@@chrisaustin9949 Only one million people play the game now?
I've always thought that they should've done an "Afterlives: The Maw," showing us Zovaal's motivations, his treachery and his imprisonment. That would have changed A LOT, and maybe this very cinematic would have felt a lot different.
This cinematic should have played exactly that role (after removing the last 3 seconds).
@@sebastians528 Yes, but it's no use if you let me see this one AT THE END of the expansion.
Next book
My only guess is is Blizz didn't want anyone rooting for the antagonist. He's the bad guy, that's LITERALLY all that mattered, as if it truly was some saturday morning cartoon.
honestly for me the ending was okish, it gives a bit more of character to the jailer and making him a bit more sympathetic before dyng is not a bad beat, the bad thing is it sets up the next carrot to follow "I was only trying to prepare for what is to come guys" why the primus didnt fucking ask what is to come? why did they just chigged him into the maw without asking???? what are the eternals doing!!!I knew they were incompetent but jesus christ...
I firmly believe Blizz needs to embrace "dramatic irony", and stop trying to keep the audience in the dark. The CHARACTERS can be in the dark, fine. But the AUDIENCE, us, well...this shit needs to stop. 2 years later and we don't know what or why he was trying to accomplish.
Ugh.
Double Ugh.
15 years later we still don't know anything at all 🤣
I'm still waiting for Sylvanas to explain what, exactly, about "the system" is flawed.
@@TheNynax She wanted to 'free' us from the system. I think she has no clue what the jailer meant with this bigger threat. Even if i am so annoyed of the current sylvannas, i hope they use the split soul, "mommy is back home in her own body" ark as good as they can to fix her. Sylvannas was a good character, but then got screwed by the writers (doesnt matter who exactly). lets hope the old sylvannas can be gone now too, like arthas.. and the new one gets judged by the arbiter.
Time to buy the new Jailor novel coming in 2023...
I remember seeing a while ago, someone on Reddit posted an alternative approach for The Jailer that was way more interesting, and fit better with Sylvanas' thing about this world being "a prison".
He was the Arbiter, and found out one day after seeing a soul he'd peeked in on before in the world of the living, that souls weren't actually going where he assigned them according to their nature, but where they were 'needed' according to some criteria baked into The Design/Purpose. So he did some digging and realised it had been happening since the start. And he couldn't do anything to change that, despite being The Arbiter, so he smashed his seat, and did all sort of crazy stuff to try and 'fix' it before the other Eternal Ones told him to cut that out. Because they had no desire to kill him (since that sure as hell isn't part of The Design), or even knew if they could, they dethroned him. And either his efforts to "fix" the system, or his being removed created a now growing flaw in the Shadowlands, in the form of The Maw.
Now after all his time in captivity, stewing in his bitterness, he's less concerned with fixing what he still sees as a flawed system, than he is with just tearing it ALL down in an act of spite. He's free because the actual death of a nascent titan in Argus (something that should return to the realm of Order, but was so damaged by the Legion, and the Pantheon forcing it's incarnation, that it no longer fit into the Design) has effectively crashed the entire system, creating the chaos in the afterlife of the expansion.
None of this crap about "what is to come", none of this rewriting of WC3 lore to make 'Thanot' the ultimate bad guy of EVERYTHING, or "Nathrezim did it", but someone threatening the entire cosmos in a bid to rebuild a system they may or may not be correct in assuming is fundamentally flawed. And Sylvanas is along for the ride, because she's seen The Maw, and knows all Forsaken have a one way ticket there because of them being Undead.
Not bad. I’d buy this. Thanks for sharing
I wish we could have followed the jailer around during the whole expansion and he could have shown all the "strings" he was pulling. I wanted to see his plans and feelings So I could have liked or hated him.
This comment is under rated
This is exactly what they did with Thanos, and is why he was so interesting
Like in Wrath - LK here, LK there, LK everywhere! But at least we knew very well who the guy was, what was his story, motivations, goals and plans. Here - Jailowho?
Yea, like how we spent time with arthas in wc3 and saw his decent into evil
Id like to add that not only did they not do that for the jailer but also they didnt do it for sylv. Its totally not clear when and how she sided with the jailer
In Wrath of the Lich King, we've seen the main villain from early on - in some quest lines, in 5-man dungeons.. because the devs had realized it's disappointing to never meet the big bad evil guy behind it all before you reach the endgame, at the very end of an expansion after defeating 10 other raid bosses. And the LK was a very charismatic, very hands-on villain. Meeting him throughout the whole storyline made him so compelling. But the developers seem to have forgotten this lesson since 2007. Sure, the Jailer shows up throughout SL, but mostly to give cryptic, unexplained lines about his plans, make cheesy villain threats in his Batman voice, and otherwise do absolutely fuck all.
Also Arthas is constantly failing. We see him fail at almost anything he touches the moment the heroes arrive, which is still the better version of "getting you here was my master plan all along".
For what it's worth, I remember watching something where they made Arthas like that in WotLK because Illidan wasn't (i.e. you never heard of peep from him), but then afterwards they were like shit we went too far and dialled it back with Deathwing (somewhat). So it's just a pendulum of baddie/no baddie.
I think its worth noting that what you are describing is the responsibility of a game designer or a creative director (like Afrasiabi).
For the most part, even the most obnoxious developer is only at fault for following someone else’s decisions.
it made it feel like you almost got him several times throughout the expansion. but even as near as you came to him in drak tharon or toc, he always was miles away. and when you finally enter his domain in icc, it was so much more satisfying when you, at long last, can actually face him in combat and defeat him
@@Alex-pb7rq I used the word "developer" here as an umbrella term for the whole team involved in making expansions. But yeah, obviously the design leads make these decisions.
It is bad storytelling if we are constantly asking "Why is the jailor doing this?" and never get an answer even after killing him.
So I agree the storytelling is bad. The problem is that they are trying to hype up the reveal since it's probably the new expac
The short answer is yes. It’s bad writing.
@@ethanhunsaker9363 The problem is knowing the "why" doesn't diminish the next expansion at all, and it's frustrating that Blizzard doesn't see that.
@@ethanhunsaker9363 nobody enjoys a cliffhanger especially with 0 actual explanation... me seeing argus in the sky after the end of ToS cinematic made me times more excited about the future even when i knew exactly where i'm gonna go and whos gonna be there... it didn't diminish the hype, it actually elevated it. in this case it's hard to be hyped for nothing... so i don't see the point
@@edelleaa oh im not saying its a good decision to hide the reveal im just pointing out that its what they're doing. I would love it if they weren't always trying to do puzzle box storytelling and actually just did character-motivated stories instead. I think the writers have lots of good threads in shadowlands but the main thread has really painted itself into a corner for no reason.
I think for me the most frustrating part of the end cinematic is it makes it pretty clear that Blizzard never had a real plan for the Jailer's motivations and goals. They created him as a baddie just for the sake of having a baddie. It is insane to me how the Jailer the we received ever made it out of production. That is extremely worrying for how Blizzard operates internally.
100% agree… 😅. I can’t believe this is the ending they had planned. More like there was no plan and they finally just rushed everything and threw it together bc they had to. I get covid but come on. Smh.
A baddie for the sake of having a baddie would have been a better ending than this, honestly. A big problem with the story is that they threw in a plot twist at the end that they barely foreshadowed, just for the sake of having a plot twist. Smacking the audience in the face with a plot twist from nowhere and awkwardly spilling the villain's backstory at the last minute when this was supposed to be the end of the story arc is just unsatisfying. I think it would have been way better if we just had a simple, predictable "The main villain we've been fighting all expansion loses, good guys win, yay" ending, like Burning Crusade, Cataclysm, MoP or Legion. Short, sweet, and to the point.
And, like Legion, if you must have a sequel hook, don't make it a last-minute plot twist. Just say "Oh hey, look, there's another threat/a new problem now".
A tidbit that I read the other day, the Primus wasn't in the cutscene because he supposedly doesn't have a cinematic model like the other 3 leaders do. So they just.. used a shadow.
That would be the worst outcome of the lot. That would mean that Blizzard purposely just wanted to save on costs and time and it wasn't for any other purpose
@@Wyrmshield Possibly time rather than cost, could be an indication that they deprioritised aspects of this patch to work on the next expac like with WoD
@@4F0xSake It would make sense with the visual style of the flashback too. Make it grainy, blurry, dark and with a nondescript background and boom, you jammed that shit out in record time.
@@4F0xSake do you remember when we were complaining and saying that WoD was a horrible expansion? I guess Blizzard prooved us how wrong we were
@@floreaciprian9742 obviously this is personal, but I found WoD worse, once I hit max level I basically didn't play the expansion again til the .2 patch then unsubbed again because it went on for so long.
I remember the covenant pre-launch videos that made all of them look really rotten and off, mind-control Bastion, Ventyhr corruption, Necrolord civil war and the Nightfae extinguishing beloved Ursoc. People thought the Jailer might actually be the good guy who was wrongfully imprisoned or something and that was why Sylvanas joined him.
Then they spent the entire expansion seemingly wanting to brush that under the rug and painting the Jailer as comically evil.
Then we get this, where they seem to try to paint shades of grey back in and tease but refuse to reveal a greater purpose. It irks me because it's missed potential, both because shades of grey might have been more interesting AND it might have made Sylvanas look less stupid if there was a legitimate goal that drew her and Denathrius to the Jailer. Instead it was all very nebulous and it seemed absolutely idiotic that Sylvanas only clocked on that maybe the Jailer wasn't a great ally at the 11th hour. If they'd actually given him a motive that might outweigh how nefarious he was maybe it'd be easier to swallow, instead it just makes Sylvanas and the Jailer look idiotic.
Agreed. We expected a chess game but instead got checkers.
TBH most of those early impressions were people deliberately misunderstanding what was told about the Covenants. Mostly by those who didn't want (to see) Sylvanas as a villain.
The path to become a Kyrian is mentioned multiple times to be a choice, you can quit the training (at least when there was still a connection to Oribos) and go to another Afterlife. Kyrestia all but warned Devos not to investigate Uther's wound further, as she knew it could corrupt her.
And the civil war in Maldraxxus, the Night Fae having to sacrifice souls to save others, and of course the corruption in Revendreth, all that was a result of the Anima Draught and the Jailer turning people to his side and have them betray their Covenants.
Maybe the writers are JJ Abrams fans?
@@Traumglanz Well the head writer loved the writing of The Last Jedi and Game of Thrones season 8 so...
@@Nathanyel I disagree, especially on the Kyrian thing where the entire Kyrian covenant arc in Shadowlands is them AGREEING that things need to change and their "path" isn't working properly. The corruption in Revendreth isn't the result of an anima drought, Denathrius has been working alongside the Jailer for far longer than the drought since his dreadlords set up Arthas, the drought started around the end of Legion.
The only contestable things are the civil war in Maldraxxus not being the covenants fault, but honestly, half of their houses were fine going along with Kel'thuzads power grab, so I'm not sure you can whitewash that as not being corrupt when you have a covenant who's theme is willpower and strength and most of them seem to have interpreted that as might is right in the absense of their head-honcho to be the mightiest and keep them in line.
The Nightfae is entirely due to the drought, but don't tell me Blizzard choosing to have the Winter Queen snuff out a beloved lore character in a pretty cold manner wasn't intentional when you're sat here watching Tali videos that spend good minutes stressing over the state of the skybox in a half-arsed cinematic.
The covenant videos were the way they were for a reason, none of them painted the covenants in a strikingly positive light. Not a single one.
I liked the Jailer from the promo looking crazed and deranged instead of what he ended up being as some calculated villain who thinks he knows better than we do.. Why wasn't he just a giant soul devourer that we had to stop because he wanted to eat all the souls before the void did etc.
sorry all villains need to be sympathetic, so we feel bad and like them more because god forbid we have one that is just evil and not some misunderstood bad/good guy
I mean, I agree with the idea of a deranged Jailer would definitely be more interesting. It would certainly be fun to see him gibber and gabble and plot and scheme, with Denathrius just sat there like "I agreed to help, I pledged loyalty, and this is what it's got me. I regret everything."
Sylvannas could be the only one in the Jailers whole group who genuinely believes in his plan, whilst everyone else are opportunists taking advantage of his lunacy, or deeply regretting their decision to ally there. Proper Mad king vibe.
@@SpodsandRockers yes agreed! The Jailer wanted to absorb as many souls as he could, and agreed to share with Denathrius to help continue the “anima drought” as a facade to filter more souls to him in the Maw. Sort of a more terrifying thought to be denied your rightful judgement in the afterlife because of an all consuming Maw that just hungers. He could have just been so ambitious he wanted to consume the ultimate soul, Azeroth’s. He didn’t need the added layers of pretend depth and “unmaking reality” to still be threatening and need to be stopped. Just an ambitious devourer like a worse Gorefiend.
@@ravenanarchy8894 I mean FFXIV balances this perfectly. Of the 3 major antagonists in Endwalker, 2 are pretty damn sympathetic and make you feel for them. And then one is just "fuck it I'm a selfish asshole, I know I am, and I will literally slaughter thousands just to get another shot at a one on one with my best friend/worst enemy"
My takeaway: The Jailer's domination runes are cosmic prison tattoos.
You're out of line but it checks out lmao
Coool... The jailer only did that bad thing because he wanted to protect the cosmos from that BIGGER more BADDER thing. Like... almost every villain in warcraft history. Definitely didn't see that coming..
Not only that, the ends don't justify the means. All the death an destruction, and for what?
The whole inversion thing between Sargeras’ version and the Jailers version has big “copy my homework but change it a bit so it doesn’t look like you copied” energy to me.
And while details have been different, it’s still disappointing that they basically keep with the “I did what I did to deal with a bigger threat” so many times.
Be prepared, I think we're going to get a few more of these before we find out what that "greater threat" is. I expect we'll have to stop *at least* a villainous entity of The Light (maybe Yrel, maybe a Naaru) trying to convert everything to defeat some greater evil. I don't kniw what they'd grab from the Emerald Dream or how they would represent the Arcane *side eyes Khadgar*. You could get me to believe we have three more of these followed by the reveal of the Biggest Bad; maybe Eldrazi, maybe some crazy god, maybe a Tyranid-like all-consuming devourer from another universe. Who knows?
I didn't read much into Jailer's lore, so he might've done that too, but at least Sargeras _told the others about his plan first._ (and had an unreasonable reaction when they disagreed, but that's besides the point)
@@just_gut All I know is that if they don't at least show us a real hint of this greater threat before the next time they mention it - something, ANYTHING, though I'd lean towards a destroyed world or something - it's gonna fall flat again.
to be fair, it makes sense more than one people goes tyrant madmen to stop something so incredibly horrible it looks like a good alternative. That said, at this point it should be something more than a vague reference to justify those means. And those madmen should actively try to reach up for help instead of 100% going evil.
One thing FF does right is actually introducing future threats time before they finally show up, making their eventual appearance something organic that the audience could say "I should have expected that". WoW has killed so many stuff so quickly at this point they don't even introduce them, and they need to take their plot in another direction and pace.
The only thing about the cinematic that appealed to me was that the design for the robot version of the Jailer was pretty nifty.
Really? I think it’s pretty dumb looking lol
Taliesin: "I like the 'what is to come' ending."
Zovaa: "I am going to dominate and destroy everything after planning for a billion years - to prevent something even worse coming along that is going to dominate and destroy everything."
No, this is garbage Tal, sorry. Maybe if they bothered to put in the effort of explaining more of what was happening, they might have pulled it off. But the way it was presented on screen - nope. And I ain't reading a book in 2 years that will 'redeem' it.
Absolutely agreed. I would say it was fun at first and it would keep the audience guessing and speculating and stuff. But when you do something like that for years, it just becomes extremely frustrating. Like, what the hell? I want to properly follow the full story, and I'm getting bits of it and then I'm told 'well, now you wait for another million years until the next expansion'. And this is especially bad now since the production of new expansions is so severely slowed down due to COVID and other stuff. Although, I don't really see how COVID might be affecting it now to be honest... Blizzard should have just kept employees instead of sacking them, maybe then we wouldn't have to wait for ages.
@@EugenikusPro Yeah, I could see how COVID could have been a factor during the first six to eight months of the pandemic (which, need I remind, started _before_ SL released) but after that the excuse falls flat. I suspect one of two things happened - either the teams were used to having the boss hanging over their shoulders and were incapable of doing anything without constant supervision or the most talented either were sick of working for the hacks and/or saw the writing on the wall with the state investigation and used the opportunity presented by not being under constant scrutiny to go job-hunting.
The Jailer's greatest efforts could not prevent the dire inevitable fate - of Microsoft becoming the controlling power over their universe. If the Jailer had only been able to convert their universe to a mashup of Bejeweled and AmongUs, perhaps things could have been different.
😅
No, that's realistic. Many bad deeds in RL are based on just hat.
You people watched so many stupid animes, that you don't even know anymore what a realistic plot and normal behaviour is, it seems.
@@miriamweller812 The Genre of game is Fantasy so it can be unrealistic
So when does The Jailer get his redemption arc? He only wanted what was best for the cosmos afterall.
Maybe he'll open a gym. The best thing he could do for Azoroth is to help the rest of the cosmos have razor sharp nipples.
At this point i dont even know if these comments are ironic or not. Theres actually people trying to say the fac tthat he had a motive means the says he didnt do anything wrong
@@MeandMonkeyLP It's mostly laughing to keep from being angry at one of Blizzard's most (over)used villan tropes. We've seen it quite a few times in WoW that villans are let off without punishment or arguably too gentile of punishments for their actions to the point it comes off as comically bad writing.
Coming in 11.0, we go activate the Jailer because of the "next baddy" that he predicted and planned to defeat for a million years just happens to show up 18-24 months after his plan failed. We'll have a short quest line where he learns to be a team player, and boom 11.1 the Jailer is an NPC who we trade currency in for raid gear.
@@MeandMonkeyLP It's near perfect Poe's Law comment by the OP ;)
I already believed that the flashbacks were existing footage the Blizzard repurposed and had originally planned to be used to "investigate" the Jailer and provide some sort of depth to his character. But as soon as Tali pointed out that the Primus was left out of the cinematic because he probably wasn't revealed yet, it's 100% confirmed.
Honestly I wouldn't have been surprised if they'd have released it with a big X across the screen saying work in progress
yeah it definitely feels like a cinematic we should have seen like 1 year ago...
No that part about the primus is just because they don't have a working cinematic version of his model. Nothing else. You are grasping at straws to justify your anger
How this video should've started
Taly: *Deep sighs, staring at the camera*
Shit show image slowly fading into existence behind him.
It surprises me the domination runes are kept on his robot form. Domination magic marks not only your flesh but your soul. Primus created something that brands you forever.
True, a point & an experience which is quite effectively (IMO) explored in the Zereth Mortis quests after Anduin is recovered.
"That was fucking lame" is the best description of this terrible, pile of poo, mountain of mammoth turd, ending. Asmongold has been saying since the beginning "why are we trying to kill the jailer? What did he do?" And we still dont know. He was the arbiter..did he siphon souls? Did he misdirect souls? If you know nothing of Arthas and the lich king, this xpac is meaningless. And if you do know, then its still meaningless. It is so bad that you would have to put forth effort to make something so tragically bad.
Well the why are we trying to kill him bit of explained. All the souls are being used and disappearing. And since we're good guys, that's a no no. It's a basic problem, but at least we had a reason to fight him. But not knowing why he did it is frustrating. Even if and I assume we do, find out, it'll be after the expansion. Which is odd
Storytellers afraid to tell their own fucking story.
Why would you use asmongolds opinions. Couldnt you have formed those on your own?
@@luckduvell I don't think it's unfair to *inform* one's opinions using Asmongold's (or most anyone else's) video content. Isn't that what we're doing by watching T&E's videos? (Not trying to be antagonistic or anything, I'm sorry if it comes off that way)
@@mattmeeks2640 it just feels a bit cringeworthy when i see him mention it specifically. It feels like 'my lord and savior' told me this and now im gonna repeat it
I think they had to make another episode of Afterlives and it was just about Zovaal and how he became what he is right now . Just like this one but at the start of the expansion. It would be awesome . But ... shame on u blizzard
The story is obviously not at its end at all and when you bring up what is feared by Zovaal long before, it would completely change the whole story.
The gods don't care all too much about mortals, some even less than others. Zovaal does not try to explain anything to mortals as a human would not try to explain anything to ants - even less when the human just wants to get rid of the ants.
The main reason he is an antagonists is, that he simlpy does not care about mortals and sees the whole life/death circle as a dangerous waste of energy. He fooled Sylvanas into thinking, the he just wanted to improve the system for mortals. Instead he just wanted to abolish it together with all the mortals inside.
That's completely fine. It's not fancy, sure, but that's the point:: in contrary to all the pretty idiot plans you see in movies today and anime and other videgames, which are shiny but absolute dumb and not making any sense, this goal is simple, it's realistic, it's typical.
But people are so used to the bullshit stories, that a normal one is just not exciting enough anymore.
Idk about you, but if I was being killed by a group of ants, I'd try to get them to stop and explain what I was doing.
@@miriamweller812 We just need to know who is Zovaal and what is going on with him . This would made us to care about him . They tried to made him be behind most of the great things in wow history to make us care about him . But they just f..ked up with that. We need an afterlife episode just about Zovaal like what they did with WoD
@@miriamweller812 Yes, completely changing the whole story is the point.
@@ShadowtheRonin How about explaining it to any of the other first ones then? Or maybe one of the people he was working with, like Sylvanas who was apparently a super important general of his? No?
I mean look, you can try to rationalize Zovaal's decision not to talk about what he is trying to do at all, ever, and the fact that we never found out any other way either all you like. That doesn't change the fact that not giving the player any insight is *bad storytelling*.
Hahahahah omg that ending was the cherry on a fantastic cake! Thank you for this :D
You!
I didn't expect my doctor-barber-tailor-artist-alchemist-librarian-merchant-andsoforth to be here.
I personally thought it was brilliant like the finale of Game of Thrones Season 8. Everything was wrapped up so neatly. Did you know that the Jailer was actually named Zovaal and he was the original Arbiter?
And who among us has a better story than Pelagos?
@@Azmoddan i.. i think they were sarcastic.
I really hope this Is sarcasm
@@codyrockwood15 It is, the main writer for shadowlands rather infamously loved game of thrones season 8, which is... uhh...
I 100% agree with the "how I got here" take. That flashback, along with other flashbacks like that, should have been played throughout the entire expansion, to help us better understand who the Jailer actually is and why he is doing what he is doing.
Yeah, this really made me realise how a relatively small change could have dramatically improved the how the story was told. Yes, it would have been a bit of a trope, but that's because it's a recognised convention that works to convey a story.
Personally, i think this cinematic could easily have been twice as long. We've waiting this long to learn more about the Jailer, and this was Blizz's opportunity to send him off with some interesting backstory that could have made us look at the shadowlands expansion in retrospect and gone "Ohhhh, now we get it."
It's unfortunate that when the jailer is most interesting is the short part of his ending.
Wish the jailer just wiped the raid when we got him to 5% and wins. Takes over the shadowlands and remakes death how he wants it and sends us back to Azeroth Gives Blizz license to update whatever they want
It's an absolutely terrible idea to make it so the raid litteraly doesnt matter. The point is that the players skills and tactics allow them to TRIUMPH over impossible odds. It doesn't work if he just wins anyway litteraly what would be the point
@@Drakshl the point would be to fix all the lore they just broke
@@Drakshl We didn't get to kill Jaina too in Battle for Azeroth, so there is no issue with escaping. Really it would be much better if he would win.
@@Drakshl well, instead the entire expansion doesn't matter. Sometimes you have to choose the lesser of two evils.
@@TheHed94 Janina didn't win. She just escaped. We sent her packing with her tail between her legs
you know, if this was planned out from the beginning it would've been so easy to highlight the Jailor's loneliness and separation from everyone else. If this really was "I'm the only one willing to do what needs to be done" it would've made for a better, way more introspective villain who also would've fit the theme of death so much more. A villain who still could've had compassion for his brothers and sisters in the pantheon, who could've seen the domination part as just a necessary, neutral thing rather than kinda seeing it as an evil goal in of itself.
Yeah i don’t know. I think this was more of a “ok let’s hurry and end this story” patch. I think we will pick up the cosmos story in 11.0 and let people rest for a few years. I truthfully believe we just need some cosmic entity to say “here is what these big baddies all believe is going to happen” and “this is how we need to stop it together”, otherwise the story seems to erratic and jumbly
This is exactly how I feel about it, it’s like you just pulled my thoughts from my mind and put them in words! Thank you hahaha.
It feels even more rushed to me than the Warlords of Draenor ending, and that’s saying something. I hope we get a good expansion in 10.0
I can't wait to fight über jailer in 11.0
I very much think that the threat that Zovaal and N'Zoth/the Void Gods foresaw (presumably the "7th force" from Firim's texts) could remain an ominous menace remaining in the background, even as we deal with/explore the other Forces, to re-establish the "mystery" that people feel has been dispelled for the Titans, Old Gods and other cosmic powers. (Of course people will then bitch about "forgotten" story threads 🙄)
Zovaal first took action about this threat eons ago, and it could be even more eons before this threat actually becomes imminent.
We might never get an expansion truly focused on this threat - it would be _mentioned_ occasionally or brought up as a hook for other forces having "creative differences" within their realms, as Tali theorized, but would otherwise not be a driving force of the story.
My theory (very unsubstantiated so far and based on single words in the Firim texts) is that the 7th Force is one of Annihilation and Consumption - not just the Chaos of Disorder, not just the Infinite Possibilities and Hunger of the Void, but utter and complete destruction of the universe(s). Possibly something the First Ones separated from the world we know, so they could have more stable environments for life and other entities to develop.
The Devourers would be somehow connected to this, creatures born from tiny incursions of the 7th Force, mixing with the matter of, in this case, the Shadowlands.
And that would be about the extent we will see of that Force, occasional incursions by Devourers and similar creatures.
The initial speech about how long he waited to have every piece of the board exactly where he wanted is the final proof that sadly blizz really want us to believe that the jailer is a freaking IQ 100000 genius and NOT an opportunistic villain like T&E speculated.
I'm not so sure that Zovaal kept the threat from the other covenant leaders. I definitely read the scene as if they knew what's up but just didn't believe and/or care about it, particularly because of what Denathrius says regarding another way. In addition, the other covenant leaders' comments are all vague enough to imply that they took issue specifically with his method of implementation -- "madness," "this end," etc.
Also, why am I strangely attracted to the decommissioned robot version of the Jailer? That jawline! Those cheekbones! Those broad shoulders! Meow!
I'm also shocked by how forceful the attempt this cinematic makes to the Jailer sympathetic is... considering I haven't really seen any of that throughout the entire rest of the expansion.
The idea of zoval as arbiter seeing a soul that saw something that scared the shit out of him would've been a really great motivation/inciting incident. Especially if we saw what that thing was in this cinematic...
That would actually have been a really cool flashback. Zovaal as the arbiter talking to a soul that tells him something terrible is to come. And then how he slowly got more corrupt to justify his idea of domination being the only way out
Yup, I legit wasn't even that mad until they did the "there is a big bad coming" as the """"final conclusion of a story we've planned since WC3""""
Yeah. Honestly, they couldve went a much different route after legion. The burning legion wanted to face a bigger threat, being the void lords. At the end of legion we even encountered more and more void entities. There was amazing buildup. And then suddenly in bfa we forget about all that and have a faction war first. Then oh hey void stuff with nzoth returns! But lets just squeeze that in and give it a rushed ending, and now suddenly we go to the shadowlands because sylvanas went crazy without a clear motive and joined a random villain who has zero lore and character.. just to end up at a horrible version of "theres a bigger threat!" HM, YOU MEAN LIKE BACK IN LEGION, WITH THE VOID LORDS? No? Maybe? We dont know!
It frustrates me.
That “planned since WC3” meme is even more hilarious after this cinematic.
1. Stripped Zovaal looks identical to Stonehead and you cant convince me otherwise, so "Hi,...uh,bye worst bud"
2. I cant wait for the reveal of the cosmic threat that we will have to fight 2 or 3 expansions from now and an attempt to justify what Zovaal was going to do by trying to press the reset button.
The de-evolved Jailer looks like the robot from the News of the World cover. Except it had more soul.
Zovaal was someone who for a billion trillion years saw every single life that ever died, reviewed every memory and every deed of every creature passing through the Shadowlands. And with this came an incredible insight for how reality was faring. What did he see that made him think it was all doomed?
Personally, I think it just adds up to what's been mentioned. Every cosmic force is preparing for the eradication fo cosmic forces, and thus is applying their own defense in the form of 'I know better than everyone else, better us in charge than them.' Thus, cosmic war, right?
So Zovaal's take was this: If we recreated reality to have to do what he said, then he just wouldn't allow any wars, and thus all of existence would be saved. Sure, he would be the ruler, but it was't about hubris. He was already the judge for all souls. It would just result in absolute rule and, technically, safety for us all. The end of free will would keep us around for eternity.
But that's not an existence worth having. One shackled and chained and incapable of original thought or independent action.
I hope other cosmic forces see this, and then see that it is we, the people of Azeroth (whether we were originated here, planted by cosmic forces, invaded or crash landed) always win in the end. I would hope that someone out there backs us up as contenders.
Perhaps it's simply the paranoia that 'everyone is out to get you' that encites everyone going out to get everyone else. And maybe our history with war and tragedy and love and honor can convince the forces of the universe to just kind of chill...
my problem with it is that he contradicts it with "eternity end"
does he want to save reality? or does he want it to end?
is what "is to come" some sort of "fate worst than death"? and oblivion would be better? that is what creates the infinite dragon flight too, the end of time where everyone is dead and or miserable is the good alternative according to them
so, we don't even know if he wants to preserve or to erase, we know he wants to rewrite it in his image, but for what? if it is to create a forever land where we keep existing in peace, even if without free will, then it will be a new eternity, not the end of it.
The problem is that Zovaal's agents (ie: Dreadlords) are the ones that caused all of the conflicts within the system of realms. Without *his* interference there wouldn't be huge destructive forces like The Legion to worry about. Zovaal created the problem, he *is* the problem, so he can't be a necessary solution. Equally, there wasn't any issue for him to despair over until after he was in the Maw and sending out his Dreadlords to trigger the conflicts and then watch them gradually play out over eons... How long did it take for The Legion to effectively sterilise the entire mortal plane?
The only way that any of this makes sense is if Zovaal had eons of prescience, seeing a distant future in which reality is destroyed (by some terrifying, but so far unidentified force) ... so he falls into the meme of the "self-fulfilling prophesy" (so very wise and intelligent) and unwittingly engineers *eons* of events that steer that reality toward its destruction... Blizzard could try to use that justification, possibly even well, except it's not in the story at any point.
Just an absolute train wreck. Living down to my worst expectations. It could possibly have been worse - skipping the flashback, just showing the rift closing and dude saying “no must not beeeeee” and calling it a day, basically like N’Zoth went out, but I didn’t think that was realistically something they’d pull here. So other than the minor blessing of it not being that, it’s about as bad as it could be. Shame, because I felt the opposite about the Anduin cinematic. I really hoped they’d turn this ship around here.
Azeroth The First One. Origin of creation, slumbering to regain its strength after locking the Old One outside of the created universe in the nothingness it came from, where it has existed since before The First. Zovaal tried to warn us, the veil is breaking, the devourers are coming through to consume all of creation & return all to the nothingness it once was. Before The First arrived.
The Old One comes, will Azeroth still be slumbering when it does?
Wow was my childhood :( I am very sad how out of touch the developers have become with their own game.
Imagine that one time you made a night elf running around the starting zone, the calming music and the sound of the spiders. Looking for your bud to quest together.... Good times, I miss them. (That's nostalgia tho)
@@tftg458 I have that exact thing but as an undead in Tirisfall Glades.
I always enjoyed playing right up to untill Legion where i quit. Felt that was the right time....
Not really though i still played Wow classic from the beginning right up to when BC came out. 🤣 a last Hurrah.
I've always turned to you, your analysis, and your reactions for clarity, understanding, and shoring up my own reactions to the events in and around WoW. Up to and including how you broke down Sylvanas and her sudden gift of introspection. Here, however, I still can't kick the thought of Illidan, Sargeras, N'zoth, and any other bigger bad trope we've been through. I hope that this is rock bottom and that 10.0 will be as glorious as it can be. Fat human paladins, hopefully. Fat Stormwind alt bodies or Kul Tiran, idc.
How delusional are you lol, how do you think 10.0 is going to be any different
@@jdv4623 People who have any hope for the WoW story need all the hopium they can get.
Misses? Well, that's a funny understatement...
I fully agree that the flashback was likely supposed to have been used at the start of the expansion, or 9.1 at the latest. There are many reasons for why this cutscene fell flat, and I think another big reason is that a lot was riding on this cutscene. The Jailer was inserted into everything and built up to be this mega big bad who was actually behind all of our woes, with very little actual character building being given to him, leading to many unanswered questions that really should have been answered a long time ago - people expected this cutscene to answer those questions, and rightly so imo, it's the end of the Jailer, if anything here is where you really should shine some light on things, but no, instead we get a mysterious "There is an even bigger big bad coming" with no actual answers being given.
It's just frustrating, I don't think this cutscene could ever have delivered even half of what it needed to deliver due to the sheer void of answers that had lead up to it, but it didn't even deliver the bare minimum imo.
Very disappointing, does not fill me with confidence for 10.0/1/2
I watched Bellular's video yesterday and Tali's today... I honestly loved having both the analysis and I think something that resonates from Bel's video here is that there are some elements of the story itself and details that are cool (the Lore) but definitely the storytelling missed the spot and is definitely another missed opportunity this expansion. Great analysis Tali!
I watched so many videos and still don’t get it 🤣
So he is a AI going wild? But the first once’s can see the future so they did know that would be happen? So why?
And now we can go to the afterlife with just a portal, so if anybody dies we can just go there and get them back with the portal?
So weird
@@SaltareObscurum once in the afterlife people are just souls, just bodyless spirits. the maldraxxi are an exception because they make meat bodies to fight with, and the venthyr are just straight up undead vampires that burn in the sun.
you can go fetch someone in the shadowlands, if you find them, and maybe you can drag them back to azeroth, but they will still be spirits
@@zennim125 🤔 so that would mean youth forever, if you get older just „die“ come back as a soul and get your soul into you young body? God damn, that would be a great buisness 🤣🤣
@@SaltareObscurum I mean, you just described banshees, the kind of undead Sylvanas is
@@zennim125 But her Body was not old or anything. I mean the normal people in wow world. If they die, somebody goes into shadowlands, bring back the soul and put that soul into a young new body. So everybody in the WoW world is overpowered bc nobody can die. Every soldier now can come back with a new life. All you need is a new body and there you go. Weird
I have a sneaking suspicion that the question asked by the Primus (as shown at 24:52) is the start of the next expansion questline. We still have 2 more chapters to go in game and just like the final Legion cinematic showed the Azerite mess in Silithus after Sargeras stabbed the world (which was the final raid ending cinematic) we got more questions than answers. I really hope the writing team are using this raid cinematic as a build up rather than a final chapter...we already had the tying up of the Sylvanas/Arthas saga which Steve Denuser aluded to 2 years ago (which in case you forgot was the Anduin cinematic).
Love how the majority of Taliesin's "analysis" is speculative reaching for what was not said or stated anywhere but only implied. As the story is so vague even he the number one Wow moral boosting channel has to make things up in his head to make all this mess make sense.
At 11:07 I have to wonder, if it's not Jailer's platform, as Arbiter didnt have platform as well. What if it's the other missing sister's of them all: Elune?
I also have problems with what they did with arthas I mean they gave slyvanas a redemption but not him
Don't forget that the flashback isn't shown to our characters, it's shown to us. Our characters are still in the dark about any of this...
Just continue with what you are doing. Cool content.
Can tell he never played WOTLK. Forge of Souls was not 'insignificant'. Forge of Souls was one of three instances that lead into the ICC raid. It was this cluster of dungeons that brought the story focus at the time (after we randomly veered off into ToC gladiator weirdness) back around to Ice Crown Citadel and had great replay-abilty and story. We saw more of the lich king in these instances than we did the entire expansion leading up to ICC and they lead the players right to the base of ICC and one of the greatest raids ever imo if not the best. They were awesome at the time and I have great memories of them. Oh one thing was bad, They brought with them the birth of Dungeon Finder :/
Exhaustion, I think is what most players are feeling.
You can't look at this ending to the raid in just a bubble. The past two years saw WoW drop in the minds of so many, and for multiple reasons.
I think players just wanted 'one cool thing' to show for it all. Something that would really blow everyone's expectations, instead we got more of the same.
Yeah it's more like "Oh thank goodness, it's over"
Also, my personal take is that the flashback is in the jailers mind so unless one of the Archon or Winter Queen or Primus wants to fill us in with that exact moment. It's basically no information our characters could know or use
I quite liked that they used the Forge of Souls, thought it was a neat idea. The rest of the cinematic not so much.
Your comments on The Frozen Throne are incorrect tho. The Frozen Throne was the container which Kil'jaeden put Ner'zhuls soul into and flung it down into Azeroth. The impact creating the pillar which it sits upon. Arthas had no hand in its creation.
it is a convoluted mess of retconns, both are true
at first in wc3 it was nerzhul in the ice cube made in the nether and hurled towards azeroth, he landed on northrend like a comet inside that hell ice.
that block of hell ice became the frozen throne, figuratively while nerzhul was inside it, and literally when arthas carved the helm out of it with frostmorne.
then arthas build icecrown with the blood of yogg saron with the help of dreadlords that were now serving him, in the same way that, at the time, varimathras was serving sylvanas. the dreadlords were demons, they could both be bound and choose their masters. Icecrown is built AROUND the frozen throne.
AND THEN it was retconned that the dreadlords built the whole citadel under the watch of the legion, and that when arthas got there in wc3, there already was a giant metal fortress already standing. they retconned the end of frozen throne
and then they retconned again so that block of hell ice is from the shadowlands, it was kil jaden that summoned it, it was the dreadlords under his orders
That last line hit hard. "He finally f*cking died" LOL *chefs kiss*
Another really satisfying analysis. Thank you for contuing to do these. They help make the game more enjoyable for me.
We always notice when Tali comes up with a brilliant intro; I would say that is the best ending so far.
Really good point regarding the flashback not answering the question we’ve been wanting to know since 9.0: “why?” We are all the Primus: aged, weathered and bitter as we wait for the answer. (And now just straight up old and pissed because the answer isn’t coming)
My gut reaction is exactly as you laid out here. This feels more like a beginning than an end, which is fine for setting up a next expansion, but terrible to wrap up one. Shadowlands is one big interlude with an overabundance of fan fare that amounts to really nothing in the end.
Well done, you certainly communicated what I think a lot of us were feeling towards it. However, I like the over arching "breadcrumbs" of whats coming in the future, from the "Long cycle", to imprisoning Sargeras, to the N'zoth end with Xalatath, the dagger and Wrathion but how long can we keep "foreshadowing" before it becomes plot holes or story lines that get trashed...and I don't have a lot of faith in them shoring up all of the loose ends in 9.2.5. I think you're right it will focus on the new Arbiter and Sylvanas, maybe see a closing for each covenant, but that will be it
This is so sad, the Jailer could have been an amazing villain, cuz not only do I like his voice, it's creepy as fuck, but his design is 15/10. Sadly, he had little lore, no built-up, and literally nothing.
What Design you mean? This weird AI „Robot“ or this 1990 „egdy“ Emo Armor? I mean why would a AI or whatever he was dress like a 13yo Boy from the 90s 🤣
His design was the most boring and bland villain wow has ever had. He's just a fucking bald guy with a holy where his heart is supposed to be.
Who is to come? If we consider what our characters have accomplished so far, I think WE are what is to come. If there's loot in it, we'll happily obliterate the entire cosmos ...
They had to make a video worse than N'Zoths death. So we would forget.
It takes a special talent to make a cinematic worse than N’zoth’s. I’m impressed actually.
How many takes @18:55 to not crack yourself up laughing? LoL. Great video man.
im really bad at handling toxicity, so after i encountered a post on reddit about this cutscene, reading a few comments, i just left those communities. Everyone just bickering and hateing, tearing everything down, completely baseless, unhinged and cruel. i really like these videos of you guys, because even if somethings not great, you are level-headed and fun. One can critisize without being toxic, thanks for proveing that again and again!
18:30
Zovaal is referring to Void
N'zoth is referring to Death
It's what makes sense to me.
I agree, some of this would have been nice to know at the beginning or during the expansion. The world / story building has been awful.
I just think it's funny that my phone had links to two headlines, this morning.
"Famous Shipwreck Found" and "Taliesin & Evitel: Everyone Hates the Ending"
Shadowlands is the only expansion I dipped out of half way. I really hope the next expansion brings us back to azeroth dealing with a holy cult or something grounded like that.
Depending on what they do with Sylvanas, the expansion that should have had the most impact on the game going forward since we were literally in the after life, ended up reestablishing the status quo more than any expansion of the last 10+ years.
Cata completely changed the landscape of Azeroth, MoP gave us escaped Garrosh who triggered WoD, WoD gave us alternative Gul'Dan to trigger Legion. Legion gave us a world sized sword damaging the world giving us the reason for BfA and BfA gave us Sylvanas turning on the Horde and the burning of Teldressel...Shadowlands gives us, what? Taelia meeting her Father and Baine developing bruises on his butt from sitting on the floor? It kind of feels like they are just going to ignore the ramifications of this expansion going forward.
@@andrewshandle I agree 100%
Dont forget that 9.2 is mashup of planned 9.2 and 9.3 so that end of Zovaal flashback cinematic could be intended for eariler of the expansion, not the final scene of final raid. Also there is still one empty gateway in Oribos' second floor, that suggests other planned content too.
Usually a quiet fan from a far, but as a game dev I absolutely LOVED the call out at the end and am just happy to hear people recognize the difference between disliking a product vs. disliking an individual/team. It can be mentally and emotionally draining to be personally attacked for something you may not get a final say in. Thank you :)
27:30 i think the reason the primus doesnt appear in this cutscene isnt because it was intended to be at the beginning of the expansion. I think its a cost-saving measure. all the other eternal ones already have high-res cutscene models that have been used in multiple cinematics already, the primus only has his low-poly model that we see in game. depicting him in this cutscene would require creating an entirely new model for the primus and only using it for like 3 seconds of footage.
While I do try and stay positive about the game, my initial gut reaction to that second cut scene was definitely a big negative. And I've been having a few unhappy days dwelling on it. I was not expecting or wanting another cliffhanger, "the real fight is yet to come" situation. I wanted a definitive ending. Moreso than ever in this case because I just wanted to put the Jailer behind us. They have been doing this roll-over ending thing since MoP, and it's just kind of tiresome.
Tali, your analysis is good. I think i agree with it, and it has actually made me feel a bit more agreeable to the situation. But my initial reaction still looms large. I really do hope the next few weeks regain my enthusiasm for the story in some way.
Expert analysis video! Spot on and insightful points and discussion. (Also. What do you know future Taliesin?? Where shouldn't I go?!)
I'd love to have Talie as my costumer. Imagine delivering a product half broken and him making compliments about the good half of it and paying full price!
Did you watch the vid?
I've never even seen Tali sew, and his ties aren't THAT nice.
@@Brooke-rw8rc But his jackets are on point.
@@urbannus did you? He said the cinematic was fine and literally in the next breath he said it sucked and it was underwhelming. You can’t have it both ways
I think one thing we can all agree on, is the “record scratch” Yep, that’s me! Is one of the best things to have come out of this Shadowlands expansion!
So, basically:
1. What, exactly, the Jailer did that was "madness" and got himself punished is never explained.
2. The reason that made him do it is never explained, and when asked directly by the Primus, he doesn't say anything. If he actually is mad, why should we believe him?
3. The only way to make sense of it all is to ask "what if?" questions and then make up answers. Which is fun, but purely conjectural.
So, basically, the Jailer is Sargeras 3.0, N'Zoth 2.0, or the Lich King 4.0. Jesus, Blizzard. Get a new shtick.
We know what he wants to do, but we still don't really know *why* he wants to do it, other than a single vague comment from a potential "madman".
Common trope of someone doing bad things for the greater good and going down a dark path.
Just a theory, what if the void is fighting a war against an outside force since they are at the most outer reaches and are trying to infest planets to help them.
but this is world of warcraft and not universe of cosmic uberbattles
Essentially we end the expansion with:
"But there is an even *BIGGER* bad, and *THIS* big bad that you just defeated was really a good guy trying to stop *THAT* even *BIGGER* bad!"
Are we ever going to see the biggest bad? Or are we just going to be stuck in an eternal loop of "Oh but there's an *EVEN BIGGER FUCKOFF BAD!"* ? Remember when the Void Lords were literally the biggest bad in the entire cosmos? Now we're being told there's an even *BIGGER* bad above them, before we even *SEE* them.
I think I'd have been happier if Zovaal just did a basic Night Elf death animation/sound and that be the end. It would have been stupid and emotionless, but it would have fit with his theme as a blank slate of a character.
> Are we ever going to see the biggest bad?
I think no, and that might be a good thing, and the intended outcome of this.
Zovaal first took action about this threat eons ago, and it could be even more eons before this threat actually becomes imminent. So, not during the lifetime of WoW at all. _Maybe_ when Blizzard decides to do a final expansion (and no, I don't see that happen this decade) it could be the Big Bad destroying the Worlds of Warcraft.
This is what makes me really not love wow right now, we are constantly chasing after some BIGGER super-mega-gods/villains, which is not making sense for me/doesnt feel right. I was happiest with 8.0-8.2 when wow was all about regular people waging wars, maybe some loas, at max some titan experiments (you cant run away from titans on azeroth). It felt more suitable for our/my heros to deal with enemies based in the land we grow up, than some undying lands master overlords/creators of all cosmos. Also 8.3 felt forced into BfA too much.
its a theory of mine that the jailer was a last minute addition. Basically the biggest thing is that the big bad of the expansion, the central pillar of the story, was not finished in time for the announcement trailer. No one else thinks that sounds a little whack? But then there is his lack of any character and the fact that the story could have been told pretty much without the jailer to begin with. My theory is that originally the conflicts within the shadowlands were going to be driven by a number of characters but then after BFA they interpreted "we want a clear villain" as "you need to shoehorn in a clear villain no matter what your intentions originally were"
Personally, the reason why it feels so awkward and why it feels like no one knows what the jailer is doing is.. they don't. I know there is new folks in the writing team but a lot of blizzards writing for the last few years has felt like "We will figure it out when we get there." which works for like.. a zone storyline, but the entire overarching narrative is not something you throw at the wall and see what sticks. It feels like a lot of this is just going by the seat of their pants, retcon as the undo button and just going nuts. Which feels.. lacking.
It's as if the creative team from LOST was brought in.
Would you consider doing a 'top 10' (or alike) list of your favourite wow cinematics? Would love to hear from you a longer conversation into each one's best techniques and what makes it so well-made. Your analyses are always so thoughtful and interesting!
13:28 Is it that disappointing that they turn to their 'stone' forms when they die? Aren't humans and dwarves the result of the curse of flesh? It fits previously established lore...
Like they give a shit about established lore
Is there any other enemy, character, creature in WoW lore that turned into stone after death?
The Jailor is an adaptation of the Aliens from Ridley Scott's movie Prometheus. Big bluish guy, big hipe, no character development, dissapointing ending and we are left with more questions than answers.
Nooooo Tali! You can't pan down! Panning is a horizontal moment. Tilt is a vertical moment. I'm crying.
Or a pedestal shot depending on if the camera is moving or just... tilting
@@animelytical8354 true but the shot in question was a tilt.
So finally something that makes sense. At 21:00 Taliesin points it out. "The lack of faith in anyone else."
The jailor was the arbiter, he judged souls for aeons and so he knew souls, he knew his brothers and sisters and his judgement was, that no one else than him could understand and stop what is coming.
So he didn't even tried to tell them, because they wouldn't understand. Maybe because he is something like a construct, makes him also lack empathy. He presented himself as a very bad guy, but he is only an artificial intelligence with no emotions.
While this ending is questionable in its quality, I've had a hidden hope from the start that Jailer is an anti-hero instead of yet another evil for the sake of being evil.
Now that we know who will be the next arbiter at the end of this expac, perhaps we will at least be given a glimpse of the Jailer as the arbiter. Like you said, it would be nice to see him viewing spirits' lives and discovering whatever it was that made him become evil for the greater good, but I am not certain we will get that. Like many have pointed out, the current formula for story telling has been leaving us with huge gaps so we continue to wonder what is going on. I get it, most story telling in media uses that formula, but they usually provide some important nuggets of information for closure while leaving some old or new ones for us to ponder on for the next adventure.
Also, I am glad you brought up the weird way WOW does flashbacks. I noticed the change back during Legion with the Illidan flashback scenes. I used to like the first one when all the night elves were marveling at the Stormrage twins' birth and how Illidan had the golden colored eyes which signified his importance; the flashback was in color, which I felt was appropriate. Then, they changed it to be completely black and white, along with the majority of them, which I did not like. I already know it is a flashback, so having it in black and white diminishes the significant information we are gleaning from them, at least in my opinion. Some of the flashbacks in BFA had color, albeit generally a very faded color scheme, but oh well. Ok, my random thoughts and rants are over.
“Every event set in motion.
Every pawn put into play.”
The two lines that made me sell my bnet for a measly $350 in 2021 after its 13yr existence and after my fanhood that started in 1997. To hell with Invincible, Ashes, Headless, etc.! All this time I keep looking for reasons to regret that decision but the more I see the most informed takes, the happier I become with it.
Someone else commented below that it's actually viable story telling to let us the players know a lot more about the jailer and his background without having the actual characters in game know about it. Like show us some flashbacks or something to make us understand him more.
I wish we had known more about him from the very beginning to make us speculate
Deleted my comment? Lol.
17:15
When people talk about the similarities between Sarge, N'Zoth, and The Jailer (hell, we can even lump Illidan from BC in there) I don't think they're talking about direct parallels. At least that's not what I think of. It's more the general idea of every time you kick a big baddy in the dick in this game, their death speech always involves "I was a good guy all along! I was trying to stop the coming of the REAL bad guy!"
Illidan did it referring to The Legion.
Sarge did it referring to The Void Lords.
N'Zoth did it referring to Death (he does say that Sylvanas intends to unleash a darkness upon Azeroth that only he could save it from so the heroes should actually bow down and serve him so they can stop this coming threat. Considering Sylvanas' role in kicking of The Shadowlands and the fact that The Jailer is trying to suck out Azeroth's soul I think it's safe to say that this is what he was referring to, not the same existential cosmic dread that The Jailer saw).
And now we have The Jailer talking about (fill in the blank).
My second issue goes along with the difference you point out between Sarge and Jailer: Sarge tried to convince the Titans to help but they said "Nah fam", The Jailer didn't. You'd think if he had a vision (or whatever) of "what is to come" and this threat was so grand that he figured the only way to save the cosmos was to first destroy it then remake it...why WOULDN'T he share that information with the other Power Rangers? So terrible was the fate that lies ahead that he would betray everything he once stood for and risk everything by going it alone. If the threat really is that great why wouldn't he enlist the aid of his buddies on the council? After all, apparently he used to be the Arbiter...I would have to think his word would carry some weight if he showed up to the office one day like "Holy shit! Guys, you're not going to believe this dream I had list night! We gotta do something now or we're all right-proper fucked!" But no, "what is to come" is a secret he'll apparently take with him to his figurative grave, even during his trial when the jig is up he still refuses to NOT speak in riddles.
All that to say that I don't buy the take where the reason he didn't tell anyone is because his ego was too big and he refused to rely upon others. We're talking about a guy who spent the past few eons using countless puppets and pawns to do his work. Pawns and puppets he *relied* on in order to see his plans to fruition. Clearly he has no qualms about leaving work to his minions, so why wouldn't he use the power of his buddies when he first discovered "what is to come?" Surely having a council of death gods all working together would be the more logical course of action for him to take.
And lastly, I take issue with the whole "a cosmos divided will not survive." If that's true then it does indeed imply that he's saying he's the real good guy in all of this, that he was acting in everyone's best interest. If that's true then why did he spend the past few eons doing everything in his power to sew chaos, strife, war, and destruction across the cosmos? Remember: all roads lead back to The Jailer. He was responsible for Sargeras' betrayal. Sarge kills all the titans, creates The Legion, and The Legion goes on to conquer or destroy countless worlds. They create The Horde and unleash it on Azeroth, further spreading war and division. He creates The Scourge which just further spreads death and destruction. And he's responsible for all the major events in the WoW storyline. Sooooooooo why is he preaching about unity when he's done so much in the name of conflict and war? I mean he's apparently been causing conflict and division ever since he saw whatever it is that had him so spooked. He *divided* the death council when he betrayed them for reasons no one knows.
I hadn't even thought about your take on why the cinematic doesn't work regarding how it should have been at the beginning of the expansion instead of at the end. I was too distracted by the above listed reasons that I personally didn't like it. But now that you mention it that is actually a really good point.
Calling for the jobs of inept or incapable leaders is not a villainous thing for consumers to do. If they repeatedly fail to deliver a satisfactory product to their consumers, if the product itself fails and falters under their leadership, they should absolutely be removed from those leadership positions. Ion might be a nice guy and a swell individual, but WoW has died under his leadership and he needs to be removed as game director. Simple as that. Same with the story leads and creative heads and anyone who is a decision maker in story delivery. Does that mean Steve Danuser should be fired? Maybe. Or Christie Golden? Maybe. Whoever is greenlighting this awful storytelling needs to be replaced with someone more competent. Simple as that. When leadership fails, it must be replaced. And it is the leadership of WoW, the director, the creative leads, and the ones who are allowing this product to be published in this awful state who should be held accountable for their failings.
It's hard to know what's actually failing here. Was the story written well but then they had to go back and rewrite, cut scenes, and otherwise ruin the story? Was it handed down from above to push out what you have, just hem up everything and ship it? Without knowing what's happening behind the scenes it's hard to know where to lay fault.
The biggest problem is that no one is taking responsibility, which is a frustrating thing for the players.
@@TheGerrok This is important to remember. No one knows who is most responsible for the current mess, so people are taking aim at whoever they already dislike. Or worse, whoever is available because they are the only employees whose names they actually know. :/
You stand before the first-est ones as they lay fallen. Against all odds you managed to gather and unit all the cosmic forces against them, from life to death, arcane to shadow and stop their plot to unmake reality.
Only one question remains. "Why" you ask, "why did you want to destroy everything?"
In their final breath, one of the first-est ones speaks. "Because if we didn't unmake reality and doom you all, you would not survive the even firster ones who want to unmake reality and doom you all.
Now you are doomed...
Also "N'Zoth and and the Jailer were talking about the same threat" doesn't work either. The Windrunner comic specifically states that Sylvanas serves "The *true* enemy". The void specifically thought death was the cosmos ending threat.
Tali, you always help me to appreciate WoW in a way that my Twitter timeline tries to stop. Thank you for this video.
yo do you play hots? recognize the username
@@loveconqueror LMAOO yeah, i used to no-life hots. did we play together?
So according to the enemy infiltrations pamflet we are told that the Dreadlords were sent to the different cosmologic forces in order to weaken them while Zovaal wanted to unite them and make them stronger for whats to come? Noice logic there
The reason you said the cinematic failed it's actually the reason I liked it. It got me exciteed for what it is to come
Another question is how did the jailer tunnel down to the anima with the forge of souls when underneath all of Northrend is Saronite (Yogg'Saron's blood) according to WOLTK Lore.
Sorry the writers just havent had time to retcon everything yet
the void/nzoth were clearly talking about death in reference to "maybe nzoth was talking about the same new threat Zoval is" . The void screams at alleria during the 3 sisters comic that sylvanas "serves the true enemy"