Dragonflight and Shadowlands have the same story

[mickybrighteyes]

In Shadowlands, the Jailer was locked up by his siblings when they refused the power of the First Ones. He escaped and vowed to make them all serve him in revenge. He promised to remake the world with his power. The 4 covenants came together to join as one power and defeat him, for Azeroth.

In Dragonflight, Razagath was locked up by her siblings when they refused the power of the Elements and went with Titan power. She escaped and vowed to make them all serve her in revenge. She promises to remake the world with her power. The 5 dragonflights are coming together to join as one power and defeat her, for Azeroth.



Why is one story "bad" and the other story "good"?

Shadowlands set up a lot of would be great moments to greatly devestate whatever they thought they were doing with something stupid. Like Lets add Elune... THE Elune... and basiucally have her do jack all beyond force Tyrande back to being "good" and admit that she (elune) played a part in sending the elves into the maw... WOOPSIES.

Also abusing the afterlife to bring back dead characters the players might havea connection to like Varian... and Arthas... wait... yeah not them lets get DRAKA and... hmmm.. Kael! cause the 4th time was merely a setbeck (behind scenes high five)....

But really SL got a lot more shit because the game itself was getting real bad. Not *just* the lore.

[CalamityHeart]

In Shadowlands, the Jailer was locked up by his siblings when they refused the power of the First Ones. He escaped and vowed to make them all serve him in revenge. He promised to remake the world with his power. The 4 covenants came together to join as one power and defeat him, for Azeroth.

In Dragonflight, Razagath was locked up by her siblings when they refused the power of the Elements and went with Titan power. She escaped and vowed to make them all serve her in revenge. She promises to remake the world with her power. The 5 dragonflights are coming together to join as one power and defeat her, for Azeroth.



Why is one story "bad" and the other story "good"?

All stories are the same story when you chop off all the detail and nuance and present them sloppily enough.

There's nothing "good" or "bad" about the grade-school synopses you've slapped together on a completed story and an uncompleted one. Assessing the quality of both requires a better take on the characters that populate the story and the execution of the beats the story is built upon. Sure, Dragonflight and Shadowlands both make basic use of the 'imprisoned bad guy' trope to kick it off, but Zovaal's and the Primal Incarnates' motivations, goals, and positions in the story aren't really as similar as you would like them to seem, nor are the stories around them taking shape in the same fashion.

[Aucald]

The lore doesn't matter, your fanfic is totes better.

If the lore doesn't matter, then no part of their dialogue actually matters.

Life on Azeroth is artificial. The protodragons and dragons all share a single common ancestor, who was also fabricated.

See above.

[Zoibert the Bear]

B-but there's... d-dragons...!

A-and th-they want REVENGE! That's hecking better than Shadowlands obviously.

Also, bad-dragon-lady is mad because arms are short, this alone takes it one notch above the Jailer who is male... I mean, one dimensional and absent.

[Al Gorefiend]

Execution. We didn't know why the Jailer did what he did and we still don't really know. Razsageth says exactly what the Primalist motivation is, it's easily understandable and arguably sympathetic, and she actually fights back against the heroes as opposed to Zovaal who just scoffs at us up until the last fight (where he still doesn't take us seriously).

Villains unveiling their sinister plan while twiddling their fingers going "MUAHAHA" is generally considered weak storytelling, though. I mean I get why they went with the Jailer being cryptic and mysterious.

[Biomega]

Why is one story "bad" and the other story "good"?

Who says this one's "good"?

It's a completely bland, entirely generic villain and setup. Heck people made threads on this very forum about how boring and uninspired they found it - and that's not even counting the fact it's apparently a direct lift from a GW2 villain, down to the lightning-dragon-with-tusks design.

One could say, however, that at least this one isn't being hyped up by the associated narrative the way the Jailer was. The whole thing about "he was behind everything since WarCraft 1" REALLY pissed a lot of people off. And while Razageth's setup of "this all happened millennia ago, we just never told you" is also pretty lame, it's not quite at that level of lameness.

[Houle]

Zovaal said "look, these sigils the first ones gave us are actual magic, we should see what the magic does! They're breadcrumbs left for us to follow!" and the Primus attacked him for suggesting it and jailed him for eternity.

Thats just wrong. The Janitor told them they should use the sigils, and when they refused, he tried to take them by force (aka he straight up attacked them). Only after that did they lock him up.
Thats been said multiple times now.

[AwkwardSquirtle]

Showmanship.

Razageth has some personality about her, the Jailer mumbled in a monotone from a distance.
The Jailer kept quiet about his motivations until the end, Razageth told us early on.

You can get away with either a villain with a good plot or a villain with a compelling personality. The Jailer had neither. The broad strokes of Shadowlands weren't bad. It was the execution of its ideas which made it suffer. To take another example, Sylvanas working alongside the Jailer initially and then turning on him could have worked. However, when they opted to make his entire aesthetic defined by Chains, and his entire zone about torturing people into subservience, it's difficult to accept that she only realised he was perhaps not all about freedom when he spelled it out for her at the end of a raid literally named Sanctum of Domination.

[Biomega]

it's difficult to accept that she only realised he was perhaps not all about freedom when he spelled it out for her at the end of a raid literally named Sanctum of Domination.

Yes, it was hard to imagine someone named THE JAILER wasn't big on freedom.

It was a big shock to all of us.