Blizz hyping new villains by downgrading older ones

[Houle]

Am i the only one that feels like this?
It started when Sargeras and his Legions entire motivation got scrapped to push the void threat. Now suddenly Sargeras wasnt the "big, mega-bad guy" (as Metzen once said it) anymore, he was just scared the the oh-so-evil-and-dark void lords take over our universe. And his Burning Legion is a bunch of incompetent idiots, who didnt even have their main planet and base of operations (Argus) under full control.
Same with the old gods, who also got shafted. Instead of eldritch, mysterious god-like beings, they are now just mountain-sized cancer that the void lords mass-produced.

And now, with Shadowlands, the Lich King and the Scourge get the boot. They are now a copy from the forces of the Shadowlands, with the LK being literally a "fake" Jailer of the Damned

However, in Shadowlands, there is a fifth zone called The Maw - A zone that serves a prison for the most vile souls, the domain ruled by the Jailer of the Damned.

https://www.wowhead.com/news=295974/...deceased-souls
The Jailer has the title, he has a crown that looks like the Lich Kings (even with the blue gem at the front), and his tower Thorgast is a bigger Icecrown Citadel, that even mirrors it in location. Also Maldraxxus is now suddenly home to the forces that were called upon by the Lich King and the Scourge on Azeroth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlOw...ature=youtu.be
In this interview,they talk about how we'll now see that the versions of what we've seen on Azeroth so far (Valkyr, Lich King, Icecrown Citadel) are just copies of the "more primal, more realized" versions in the shadowlands (Kyrian, Jailer of the Damned, Thorgast)

Am i the only one who doesnt like that? Like, seriously, you dont have to shit on the old, beloved villains just bc you want to establish new ones.
"Oh wait! You remember that old villain you all loved? Well, buckle up, because he was just a weaker version/scared of that NEW VILLAIN over there, so its super epic guys!!!!"
No, its not Blizz...
Edit: pls dont get the wrong idea, i fully get that its bound to happen bc blizz apparently loves the power-creep and refuses to scale down in terms of threat-lvl, but thats exactly what i criticize.

Edit 2:*sigh*
i shouldve known many people wont get what i meant. Idc that sylvanas beat the lich king (i mean, its still not good storytelling to have her just effortlessly beat him, but as many have already said, bolvar was just containing, didnt have frostmourne and sylvanas got the one of the biggest power-ups weve seen in the lore, so it kinda makes sense for her to win), its the fact that, from what weve seen so far, the Jailer will basically be Lich King 2.0 only in bigger n badder, while the original Lich King will be reduced to a jobber copycat.
Ill admit, we dont know THAT much so far, so that might change, but from what weve seen so far, it sure looks like it.

[zlygork]

I mean, it's just bound to happen when everyone wants to be a special heroic snowflake and be acknowledged for being there when Deathwing and Argus fell; the lore gets infected by power creep.

If we could acknowledge that we are a single cog in a giant army, then we wouldn't need these ridiculous power jumps.

However, I myself couldn't care less for the lich king not being some God like people hyped themselves to believe he was.

[Varodoc]

The fact that Sargeras had more understandable motivations didn't make him a weaker villain, it just made him a more... wait for it... "morally grey" villain. He was still the mega uber big bad guy, because he could literally destroy worlds in an instant, he just had more elaborate motivations than just burning everything because he is a psycho. "Big mega bad guys" with generic evil motivations are so trash anyway, it's always preferable to have a villain you can at least understand if not even justify.

[Aucald]

This is pretty much an age-old trope in fiction, known on TV Tropes by the humorous name The Worf Effect. Basically a character, usually a villain, makes their power-level known by beating down another character well known for their own strength or power. "Star Trek" followed this trope by having various aliens beat down Worf (the stronger-than-human and very physically capable Klingon security chief) to establish their own strength. Sylvanas does the same by beating down both Saurfang (himself long a meme for insane strength and accomplishment) as well as Bolvar to establish her threat-level in the narrative.

[Firedemon]

People need to understand that Sargeras could never have been a fightable villain in wow.
Because outside of the titans he would just be able to completely decimate entire planets. So a hotspot in a cinematic is the best that could have ever been done for him.

On another note, new characters, villains and heroes are the best thing for wow.

[Houle]

The fact that Sargeras had more understandable motivations didn't make him a weaker villain, it just made him a more... wait for it... "morally grey" villain. He was still the mega uber big bad guy, because he could literally destroy worlds in an instant, he just had more elaborate motivations than just burning everything because he is a psycho. "Big mega bad guys" with generic evil motivations are so trash anyway, it's always preferable to have a villain you can at least understand if not even justify.

yeah, and him having a better motivation is great, but that motivation was only changed to hype up a new big-bad. they didnt get rid of the big bad whos evil for the sake of being evil, they just used the old one to create a new one. and thats exactly what i mean.

[Varodoc]

yeah, and him having a better motivation is great, but that motivation was only changed to hype up a new big-bad. they didnt get rid of the big bad whos evil for the sake of being evil, they just used the old one to create a new one. and thats exactly what i mean.

With the important reminder that Sargeras is stronger than the Void Lords, who were always envious of the power of the Titans (so much so that they have to target Titans when they are still very weak and defenseless), and is simply just worried by their insidious corruption taking over a World Soul.

[Sesto]

I agree. Really makes you wonder what the next asspull will be.

[Aeluron Lightsong]

Bolvar as a Lich King wasn't entering villain territory like Deathwing,Garrosh,Sargeras. He wasn't actively trying to destroy the world, he just did shady things but not on a global scale. The Lich King somehow getting downgraded isn't really a thing. The Lich King and Scourge have always been an Undead type of thing not literally dead souls. We also barely know anything about this Jailer dude, so its way too quick to judge.

[Queen of Hamsters]

If they didn't nyuance old villains a bit, there'd be the constant fanrage when a new villain was brought in "cuz why we not fighting the big bad???".
Sargeras still seemed plenty as powerful as ever.

Sylvanas beat Bolvar with ease because he had done zero of the work Arthas put in to gain power. Look at the fan reaction from people thinking that wearing the crown makes you Arthas-level, for example.

It's a tried and tested trope though.

[TigTone]

Imo they should downgrade our champions into worker peons with deformities and all.

Like the ones in Warcraft III reforged.

Then any threat after that would feel as such. A threat.

[McNeil]

I was fine with having the Burning Legion act as the main antagonist for the Warcraft universe, and when they are defeated the game would just end. If you look back where the RTS began it was because of them that the franchise started out in the first place. Now they have this ‘there is always a bigger fish in the ocean’ mentality and they pull out characters out of nowhere with some obscene power levels. I guess this is to be expected when you have your franchise lasts way longer than you expected, and it doesn’t help that there are constantly new writers that just retcon old stuff so that their new stuff fits in somehow.

After the Legion’s defeat they should never do ‘big bads’ again imo, simply because no one should outmatch Sargeras. They could have focussed on other world conflicts and try to properly end the Alliance vs Horde story.

[Kyphael]

Blizzard's starting to write their story like wrestling.

"Lich King's old news, we got to feed him to Sylvanas and push her to the top! Have her beat his ass and totally dominate him to really show the audience how much of a threat she is!"

And that's why Sylvanas hit Bolvar in the nuts and hit him with the championship title belt and broke his helmet in half.

[TigTone]

WoW Classic is over there ->

You called them here with that statement.

[Syegfryed]

like people said: no respect for old lore that they didn't write, they want their own story/legacy and have no doubt to downgrade the others works in prol of their own

[Garymorilix]

When you make threads like this about the new lore, can you at least not be hypocritical about the old lore?

Literally go back and play Warcraft 3 and look at the story like you look at the Shadowlands story now. I dare you to do it.
Then you can go even further back, who cares.

They made up villains and threats left and right. You don't care tho, nostalgia goggles too pink.

It's not like it wasn't written like tihs for the past 25 years of Warcraft. But yea, complain more cuz waifu Lich King got power creeped (which by the way we knew about ever since the 'there must always be a lich king' stuff).

[crakerjack]

I don't get why so many people are hung up on the LK storyline. That storyline pretty much ended the moment Arthas was no longer the LK. It doesn't matter who wears the helm at this rate, they're not Arthas. I can't speak on behalf of the old lore since I didn't care much about it back then, but the new lore makes perfect sense. The reason the whole burning legion was created by Sargeras was to combat the void lords and their never ending thirst for matter. He went to the extremes to stop them by destroying all life before they could, because he believed that life would find a way to begin again after the void lords were starved to death. I can imagine it's annoying for those that have immersed themselves in the lore as things have been retconned, but for someone like me who is newish to the lore, I'm able to appreciate the twists and turns the lore produces. I like these epiphanies of "Yea Sylvanas has done some fucked up shit, but here's how she's really morally grey"

[Adalwolf]

Am i the only one that feels like this?
It started when Sargeras and his Legions entire motivation got scrapped to push the void threat. Now suddenly Sargeras wasnt the "big, mega-bad guy" (as Metzen once said it) anymore, he was just scared the the oh-so-evil-and-dark void lords take over our universe.

You mean... ever since TBC has been launched? Sargeras and the Burning Legion motivations has been the same ever since they retconned it, back in TBC. It didn't change in Legion.

Same with the old gods, who also got shafted. Instead of eldritch, mysterious god-like beings, they are now just mountain-sized cancer that the void lords mass-produced.

Old Gods have never been interesting. C'Thuun was not that big of deal and Yogg'Saron was only a filler Boss in an Expansion revolved around the Lich King. N'Zoth, despite being the weakest Old God, is the only one that has made to the final patch of an Expansion.

And now, with Shadowlands, the Lich King and the Scourge get the boot. They are now a copy from the forces of the Shadowlands, with the LK being literally a "fake" Jailer of the Damned

Bolvar is a very interesting character and I look forward to see him in Shadowlands. That said, he is not the real Lich King. The Lich King died with Arthas and Ner'zhul. Bolvar is just a guy wearing a helm that was not meant for him.

[Syegfryed]

They made up villains and threats left and right. You don't care tho, nostalgia goggles too pink.
.

the problem is downgrading others, not creating or making up new villains

[Houle]

When you make threads like this about the new lore, can you at least not be hypocritical about the old lore?

Literally go back and play Warcraft 3 and look at the story like you look at the Shadowlands story now. I dare you to do it.
Then you can go even further back, who cares.

They made up villains and threats left and right. You don't care tho, nostalgia goggles too pink.

It's not like it wasn't written like tihs for the past 25 years of Warcraft. But yea, complain more cuz waifu Lich King got power creeped (which by the way we knew about ever since the 'there must always be a lich king' stuff).

Haha, so much bullshit in one post. I dont care that the Lich King isnt one of the strongest beings ever, he never was. What i care about is that Blizz made him a copycat villain, he isnt his own thing anymore, hes just the weaker version of the jailer.
And what part about WC3s lore shat on the villains that came before huh? Gul'dan was done justice, ner'zhul became an even bigger villain, the horde evolved/got actual personality, the legion/demons got much more fleshed out. Not one part of the story of WC3 downgraded the villains from the previous games. So cut the bullshitting