So, What does everyone think about the Jailer? Does anyone else like him?

[Wangming]

Like him as in, as a person? He is evil and lacks personality, so no.
Like him as a character? Also no, cause he is more boring than a commercial break and his retroactive insertion into the story doesn't make a lick of sense.

When it turned out that Emet-Selch was behind the Garlean Empire in FFXIV people were shocked, but quickly realized that this explains a lot of weird shit about the empire. Like why are they so counter productive with their goals. Or why the Emperor okay something that was essentially the complete and utter destruction of an entire continent.

The revelation that the Lich King was created for the purpose of gathering Sigils for the Jailer not only makes Kil'Jaeden the Deceiver look like a total chump but makes all three Lich Kings total loosers as they never even attempted anything that would further that goal.

Also we are supposed to care about his evil plot, but it's way too vague for that. He needs the sigils to get something that will enable him to do something that is specualted to negatively affect Azeroth. Well hot damn I really do understand the stakes here and am shaking in my boots at the prospect of the half dozen characters i still tolerate, being somehow hurt.

Also also, what's the worst that can happen? He's going to kill us and our soul enters the Maw? We already showed that we can escape no problem.

[olddog]

The jailer is just a filler villain.

[Progenitor Aquarius]

Got the dreadlords to manipulate Sargeras,

Wait what? Was he even alive by then?! I thought void actually manipulated him. By the way I hate them both, and the Jailer owns me 1000 stygia and I'm going to get it one day.

When Danuser's "oh noes he was BEHIND EVERYTHING and better than stupid Metzen's stuff, maybe Sylvanas will notice me now, she's so hawt" villain is best summed up by a parody, it's hard to take him remotely seriously.

Ahahahaha! The Jailer will gets his role on Broadway. The Phantom Of the Opera. That would fit him so well. Damn it guys.

[shise]

Hard to have an opinion on him at all. His character is literally not developed. They introduced him and then they pretend that we know him from always, you know, it´s Jimmy from downstreet.

[Aresk]

I think he's a little better written than BfA Sylvanas, in that while he doesn't divulge any of his true aims, he at least isn't ordering around half the player base. Having super mysterious guy follow Sylvanas' time as a villain, however, is a little frustrating. I like that he doesn't feel the need to explain his plans to us (I'm looking at you, Kael), though I find having little information about the ultimate motivations frustrating after just going through an expansion of that.

He hasn't shown up in like any of the zones. He has shown up in cutscenes but it doesn't feel like we know him at all.

The Jailer's power potential is huge, so he could be an epic villain. But between a .2 and a .3 all that's left my hopes are pretty low atm. I don't see public opinion on this guy changes unless he pulls a Gul'dan and sticks around for another expac.

He's trapped in the Maw, so his showing up in the zones would completely undermine that aspect of his character's plight. I think coitizing that narrative choice is fine, but with the story as written, he shouldn't be seen outside the Maw until the narrative delivers his escape from it.

In retrospect I think what they were trying to do with Sylvanas is actually kind of interesting, but at the time they were happening the moments never really landed.

Like, Sylvanas stirring up conflict amongst the living to try and create an army of souls in the Shadowlands that she can use to unmake the afterlife, in order to escape her own fate, is... not a bad idea at all, for her character arc. It's just not the story they actually delivered to us.

What we needed was a story like the Illidan novel that gave us her side of the story, in a clear and well-defined way. Not necessarily outside of the game, though bare minimum that would have helped. Obviously I don't think the narrative of BFA would work if we knew from the start what was motivating Sylvanas, but at some point, her perspective of events during Legion and BFA needed to be presented to us. Like, maybe with a big questline during patches 8.2.5 ~ 8.3.

I wholeheartedly agree that Sylvanas' motivations needed better explanation, but at least we're getting that novel next February.

Did they ? Denathrius explained clearly that Zovaal is trying to « reclaim what was his ». So whatever he is after is supposed to be something he had « before ».

The infuriating thing is that we know nada. What, when, how, who ? No fucking clue

We've gotten a few lines about what he wants. Azeroth's soul. Whatever was once his (I'm guessing this is an allusion to his seat in the Arbiter's chamber, though that's pure speculation on my part). The knowledge unlocked by the Sigils. It's possible that he has told his minions different tales to get their allegiance. Denathrius in particular seems like the least trustworthy of his cronies given that Denathrius previously opposed him and now supports him, so I would suspect Zovaal would be the cagiest with him about his true motivations.

The revelation that the Lich King was created for the purpose of gathering Sigils for the Jailer not only makes Kil'Jaeden the Deceiver look like a total chump but makes all three Lich Kings total loosers as they never even attempted anything that would further that goal.

That's because all three Lich Kings defied him, which really just makes the Jailer's domination capabilities seem questionable. Fortunately for the narrative, Anduin seems more weak-willed than the rest, so the plot can now move forward.

[Ivarr]

He's fine. Obviously it's a completely new character so we don't feel too attached to him as opposed to Sylvanas who has a very deep lore already

Sylvanas overstayed her presence for at least three expansions now. Great example of how merely showing up and doing lots of things doesn't automatically result in any investment if there's no motive.

[Super Dickmann]

I mean, you're basically saying "this is the worst villain, except for all those other villains that were so bad I want to pretend they didn't even exist."

As I said, substantively the Vanilla bosses were better in their role than the Jailer is in his, despite being mostly self-contained. The reason they and the TBC villains are difficult to gauge is because those releases didn't have overarching villains. In their own stories, KT, C'thun etc. worked well. Ragnaros has more societal build-up and backstory and is better integrated into the setting and he's just a giant fiery man who wants to burn everything.

If you want an actual take on the TBC bosses they're obviously all products of character assassination who in Illidan's case you're very unclear as to why you kill anyway beyond him being an asshole to some people you don't know. There was (bad) character work done with Illidan regarding him being insane and delusional and it comes through several times. It's not Shakesperean stuff but you can at least discern what they were going for and why he's a bad dude. Him I'd put above the Jailer.

But if you want to make the case I'm not giving Kael and Vashj their shake as being completely dreadful, unmotivated and one-dimensional villains, hand to my heart I'll admit that Kael was worse. For similar reasons as Deathwing - him having a backstory makes him worse because it's entirely inconsistent with his portrayal and when he does appear he's just a raging lunatic.

[UndedoKoleda]

I don't like the Jailer.

The main problem I have with him, is now Blizzard are trying to pin on him things that are going as far back as the turning of Sargeras. They haven't said it out loud, but it's implied in the game, that a villain, whose existence we just recently learned about, was pulling the stings on a cosmic level, while chilling in his cozy Maw. They shoehorned the Dreadlords under his command(via Denathrius), they implied that he is the main driving force behind the entire Arthas story arc and who knows how many other ones. You can't just shit on people's nostalgia and expect to be prized for it.

Same goes for their complete inability to actually show how powerful he is in game, thus having to power him up in out-of-game sources, such as interviews.
"Oh, but he is a Titan++ threat". "His kin are equal to Titans". - This is an indicator of a job badly done. Especially when you say one thing in an interview, and then in the game is shown the completely opposite.

Many other people already mentioned the problem with stalling to reveal his motivations. This is especially true after the entire fiasco we had in BFA with Sylvanas. It was an entire bloody expansion of "why is she doing that", "there must be a higher purpose/legitimate reason for her to burn that tree", "is someone controlling her", "what is her ultimate goal with all of that". Now we have more of the same, all we got was that she was working for someone and was empowered by him, we still know absolutely nada about what her(and his) goals are, and we're at the first major patch already.

Not to mention how some things make absolutely no sense, regardless of the context. Like, for instance, why is Sylvanas ok with working along Kel bloody Thuzad.

[Razion]

He's trapped in the Maw, so his showing up in the zones would completely undermine that aspect of his character's plight. I think coitizing that narrative choice is fine, but with the story as written, he shouldn't be seen outside the Maw until the narrative delivers his escape from it.

We don't interact with him in the Maw really, either.
The point is we aren't interacting with him at all throughout the entire expansion.

This was criticized in Wrath of Arthas, but we already knew him. We're freshly introduced to the Jailer, know nothing of him, never see him or confront him ourselves really, and he's just kind of there -- off in the Maw, somewhere, supposedly, and it never feels like a genuine interaction. The Eye arbitrarily killing us is as close to an "interaction" as we get with him. But even that doesn't feel at all personal or like any kind of interaction - it just feels like a game mechanic being a game mechanic killing us.

[ChairmanKaga]

Completely boring and empty. I suspect intentionally so like there will be a narrative swurve that the big blue bald rune man isn't Zovval.

[Ivarr]

Completely boring and empty. I suspect intentionally so like there will be a narrative swurve that the big blue bald rune man isn't Zovval.

But that would only kick the can down the road because we have no idea who Zovaal is either.

This beautiful illustrates why I'm such a big fan of the Old Gods. They don't really have much character either. Their motivations are 'corruption' and 'madness'. Not interesting. BUT what the Old Gods do well is that they're always slowly introduced into the game. You enter a world where everything is fine, but then something seems off, you have a hunch but it's not confirmed and then things escalate quickly into total insanity.

It Lovecraft to a T. This type of storytelling makes the player acquainted with who these beings are through tons of foreshadowing, subtle or blunt, it's always giving a feeling of a personal connection. BfA wasn't the only story that did this well. Cataclysm had several Twilight Hammer story arcs and even Northrend made the player 'descend' in the Nubian kingdom.

It's a shame the big ones are gone. They're sorely missed.

[Orby]

He is a very bog standard, paint by number, Saturday morning cartoon villain. and he's very pouty when he talking, it urks me every time he talks, I duno whjy, but Sylvanas has the same sound when she talks too, so god damn pouty xD

[Chaotic1962]

To me he is more like steppenwolf from justice league (original), sure hes there, hes evil, but thats as far as that goes.

[Aphrel]

I don't think we are supposed to like him, since he is a villain.


But given the massive lack of character development for him I would have to say I'm a strong "indifferent" to whatever happens to him.


I truly think Blizzard is banking on the "mysterious, intentions yet to be revealed" trope with the inevitable "gotcha!" moment that is to explain everything retroactively.

This indeed.

Atm there rly isnt any opinion to have of him other than. "oh that guy? *shrugs shoulders* Yeah i dunno, havent thought about him much tbh".

I think what we can expect is that part of his plans get completed which will lead into whatever next expansion they have planned. They might even leave him out of any raid similar to how they did with sargeras. Then try and craft some compelling story in the last patch that explains his motivations or something.

[loras]

I think he's a little better written than BfA Sylvanas, in that while he doesn't divulge any of his true aims, he at least isn't ordering around half the player base. Having super mysterious guy follow Sylvanas' time as a villain, however, is a little frustrating. I like that he doesn't feel the need to explain his plans to us (I'm looking at you, Kael), though I find having little information about the ultimate motivations frustrating after just going through an expansion of that.



He's trapped in the Maw, so his showing up in the zones would completely undermine that aspect of his character's plight. I think coitizing that narrative choice is fine, but with the story as written, he shouldn't be seen outside the Maw until the narrative delivers his escape from it.



I wholeheartedly agree that Sylvanas' motivations needed better explanation, but at least we're getting that novel next February.



We've gotten a few lines about what he wants. Azeroth's soul. Whatever was once his (I'm guessing this is an allusion to his seat in the Arbiter's chamber, though that's pure speculation on my part). The knowledge unlocked by the Sigils. It's possible that he has told his minions different tales to get their allegiance. Denathrius in particular seems like the least trustworthy of his cronies given that Denathrius previously opposed him and now supports him, so I would suspect Zovaal would be the cagiest with him about his true motivations.



That's because all three Lich Kings defied him, which really just makes the Jailer's domination capabilities seem questionable. Fortunately for the narrative, Anduin seems more weak-willed than the rest, so the plot can now move forward.

It might also be that Kil'jaeden tampered with the helm and blade, as he literally created the lich king, even if it was not fully his own design.

Which means that Anduinbmight be subject to much more potent domination stuff than the lich kings.

[tripleh]

Has the same feel as legion and Sargeras storywise.

[Alanar]

So far he did nothing wrong. Maybe he just want to leave Maw? And start new life as farmer in Pandaria? No one asked him about it

No one cares that is why.

[sam86]

I don't think we are supposed to like him, since he is a villain.

Arthas is most beloved character in wow and he is a clear villain
Jailer is boring, Arthas we walked his shoe for most of wc3 (and illidan and kael too), hence why no wow character can beat Arthas, the 2nd best is Garrosh but since literally half of lore team didn't get memo (yes that their own words) about change him from villain to anti-hero in cata only to back to idiot villain in mop, they kinda fucked it up
still of all wow-born characters, Garrosh is 'best', which show how shit pure wow characters are

[Super Dickmann]

No one cares that is why.

This is probably the most damning thing to be said about the Blue Man. Nobody really cares all that much about him. He fills space and when you hit him enough he'll fall down and drop epics, but he isn't even fascinatingly bad in a way that makes him hateable from an out of character perspective.

As he is right now, he is someone who exists to enable other stories, the writers know it and yet he's moved out of this perfectly functional role for him to instead be the main villain and be retconned into being behind everything from the Legion to the Hindenburg disaster. He simultaneously exists to prop up familiar names like Sylvanas and Kel'thuzad and pretty much everything bad about their current characterization comes from being tied to him. It's a strange piece of bad writing. It's like the writers are stuck with this placeholder as much as we are and we're going through the motions together.

I am morbidly curious to see what the fuck they're going to do with him in his final patch in 9.2 when Sylvanas, KT and even lesser hitters like Helya are no longer around and he has to carry this bullshit on his own.

[BrintoSFJ]

I don't like him much, he is the perfect schemer. He perfectly created all of our struggles for survival and then used them for his benefit. Every time we fought hoping to save our world(Azeroth), was just a makeshift game of cat and mouse arranged by him. No matter the participants, no matter the outcome, he has been the ultimate winner. Knowing that no matter what we do, everything is futile and benefited someone else, is extremely frustrating. And this expansion is heading to that direction already, he will win and we will fight for nothing. That is why he is such a perfect villain, unlike those lame ass morons who give grand speeches about how intelligent they are and how clever their schemes are and let us just destroy their machinations, Jailer is a nasty bastard, he gives us no solace, no hope and no way out.