What if: It was the Jailer all along

[oblakoff]

Pure speculation:

With the recent retcons about Lich King, Frostmourne and so on, what if the Jailer was all along controlling the LK.

Clearly Helm of Domination and Frostmourne was forged or at least originated in the Maw. After that Nathrezim stole it/borrowed it for Kil'Jaeden and the Legion. Aesthetically speaking Helm of Domination fits a little too well for the Jailer himself - i am speculating that it was not only originated in the Maw, both items belonged to the Jailer himself. The roles of the JAILER and the Lich King - who serves as a controlling force that CONTAINS and controls the scourge are very similar - one on Azeroth and one in the Maw.

Bolvar Fordragon: Place the crown upon my head, Tirion. Forevermore - I will be the jailer of the damned.

The possibility is that except Ner'Zhul and Arthas the driving force in LK actions was the Jailer himself whispering through Helm of Domination and orchestrating the actions of the scourge - including preparations for war with the Legion.

When the Legion was defeated - all conveniently aligned with Sylvanas/Jailer plan:

Varimathras: Tell me, when she seized your throne of hides and bones, was your allegiance forced? No... I'd wager you surrendered it willingly... or were convinced you did.

Varimathras: It matters not. You are blind to the darkness in your midst.

And when N'zoth and Azshara, other pretenders for Azeroth world soul are defeated too:

Azshara: Treacherous Banshee! Do you think I am blind to the darkness you seek to unleash?

All that remains for Sylvanas (again - agent of the Jailer) is to tear the veil using the Jailers power (through the Helm).

N'zoth: The veil wanes. His crown will open the way.

I know it is a crazy theory - but what if the missing part of the Jailer (Titan++) is actually his soul - the world soul...of Azeroth - the world that is a prison


NB!: I do not have SL beta and didn't play on the PTR
Originally posted on reddit on 02 Sep 2020

[Arrashi]

But what if sylvanas is just some chick in real world who got hit by pickle truck and is now in coma dreaming?

Its just retcons written on the knee 5 minutes before needing to finalise expansion concept.

[Chat]

yes. Blizzard has made it pretty clear that the Jailer has been involved in matters outside of the Shadowlands for a while now.
Not just with Sylvanas.

Edit* since you added spoiler tag.. you can see from some of the quests that have been posted here and on wowhead talking about how the Nathrezim are also being hinted at siding with "Death".

[deviantcultist]

I mean, in one book Sylvanas claimed that she got forced into Warchief (in her own mind) and then you have Danuser saying that she played all of them to have good politics and allies.

Clearly shows they don't know what they're doing.

PS. Now Chronicle has been compromised by saying it's made from the Titan PoV so what can you really count on?

[TigTone]

I mean, in one book Sylvanas claimed that she got forced into Warchief (in her own mind) and then you have Danuser saying that she played all of them to have good politics and allies.

Clearly shows they don't know what they're doing.

PS. Now Chronicle has been compromised by saying it's made from the Titan PoV so what can you really count on?

Chronicles isn’t compromised just because it isn’t Omniscience.

No one being in WoW is or should be Omniscience. The closest is the void lords but they are chaotic which makes it not boring.

If WoW was a finished series I would understand complaints if shit was changed or added to a finished story but Warcraft is far from finished.

[oblakoff]

I agree with that all the retcons are forced and changed several times, but it is what it is, and we can only theorycraft what is the new lore now.

[Verdugo]

But what if sylvanas is just some chick in real world who got hit by pickle truck and is now in coma dreaming?

Its just retcons written on the knee 5 minutes before needing to finalise expansion concept.

If you zoom the camera far enough above Sylvanas, you can hear heartbeat and EKG.

[Goldielocks]

Chronicles isn’t compromised just because it isn’t Omniscience.

No one being in WoW is or should be Omniscience. The closest is the void lords but they are chaotic which makes it not boring.

If WoW was a finished series I would understand complaints if shit was changed or added to a finished story but Warcraft is far from finished.

That’s not stopping Blizzard from marketing it like it is. There’s a reason why people think it’s definitive. We were lied to. Amazon still has its description as it always was, despite the fact that it’s almost been a year since Blizzard revealed it actually isn’t definitive.

[Netherspark]

The Lich King is clearly going to be retconned into being a Jailer plant. Arthas was a hapless pawn, and everything he did was part of the Jailer's plan. Ner'zhul and the Dreadlords may have been in on it.

Of course none of it really makes sense, given their past actions but that hardly matters nowadays.

[Die]

Of course none of it really makes sense, given their past actions but that hardly matters nowadays.

It matters in the sense that it takes away from the coolness factor of Arthas. New writers (if not restrained) will destroy current popular lore figures to use them as fodder for the NEW characters the new writers create. Arthas would be a huge target of a new writer. Turn Arthas into a pawn of your new character to try to make your new character important. But in the end, the fans still won't care about your new character AND now they have lost the passion they once had for the old character.

[valax]

What if the Jailer is the enemies we made along the way <3

[Varodoc]

Frostmourne and the Helm were forged by a servant of the Jailer, and carry the power of the Maw, but the Jailer doesn't actually control the Lich King and the Scourge. That's why Archimonde and the nathrezim were the real power behind Ner'zhul, and Ner'zhul orchestrated Archimonde's final demise to free himself from his and Tichondrius' control.

In Shadowlands pre-patch, Jailer is able to control the Scourge only thoguh Herald Dalora, and by exploiting the power vacuum left after Bolvar's defeat.

[Feanoro]

It matters in the sense that it takes away from the coolness factor of Arthas. New writers (if not restrained) will destroy current popular lore figures to use them as fodder for the NEW characters the new writers create. Arthas would be a huge target of a new writer. Turn Arthas into a pawn of your new character to try to make your new character important. But in the end, the fans still won't care about your new character AND now they have lost the passion they once had for the old character.

The sad part is the glorified fanfiction writers at Blizz can't understand this.

[Darknessvamp]

" It was the Jailer all along " Although it seems like that is what they're now heading towards retconning the overarching plot of Warcraft into having always been about (although how stupid a move that is is unfathomable and there is very little to even support as being 'true'), it makes very little sense considering the number of antithetical decisions that have been made throughout this "plan of such a grand cosmic scale" that makes it look more like a cosmic fuck up instead. As does your theory that Azeroth is actually the Jailer's soul and not just another Titan unless they're planning yet another retconned reason for why this planet gets all the attention in this universe.

I know a lot of people complain about the Chronicles having been made as the canon of WoW posthumously (despite the fact most of the same people were the ones that argued it was a good thing in the first place) as having limited the lore and "boxed it in" by giving some vague idea of it's limits, I do find it funny that they still celebrate the unsupported "lore" and paper thin "revelations" they're bringing out with each expansion that is boxed in by the cosmology that they invented and shackled themselves to since the first Chronicle volume came out. Everything has to link back to this chart and everything has to have the same command structure as what is in chronicle but oh none of it is canon and we can expand the lore by contracting it within it's own anus. -_-

[Cyanu]

since the Jailer is pretty much a nameless character so far this can work out in 2 ways:

1)they build the Jailer into a badass that was there all along like you pretty much suggested

2)the Jailer is a 'placeholder' that will get displaced as some major character (Sylvanas? Arthas? someone else?) steals his power and takes his place

[Varodoc]

since the Jailer is pretty much a nameless character so far this can work out in 2 ways:

1)they build the Jailer into a badass that was there all along like you pretty much suggested

2)the Jailer is a 'placeholder' that will get displaced as some major character (Sylvanas? Arthas? someone else?) steals his power and takes his place

The second one won't happen, since we already know Jailer is the main villain, central driving force, and final boss of Shadowlands. If someone does steal his power, it will be the main villain of 10.0.

[Gaidax]

I believe Jailer is just a stepping stone.

[oblakoff]

Jailer is not nameless character - his name is confirmed to be Zovaal. If you mean this metaphorically - agreed, he is not previously established and I believe he is just stepping stone for „The First Ones“ or the void lords or something in this line.

And yeah, Christie Golden is destroying the franchise, I never believed I’ll miss metzen and his green Jesus

[TickTickTick]

Yeah, I was wondering recently...

Let's assume that Arthas is defeated and spirit of Terenas doesn't appear. Frostmourne was already destroyed, but we knew the Helm was also the source of LK power. Logically we would have destroyed it too, right? But at that point the Jailer wasn't strong enough. Who knows if the Arbiter went dormant even. So without Shadowlands not being weakened yet, destroying the Helm would not shatter the veil.

But so it happens that the spirit of Terenas appears. It always kind of irked me how the first spirit consumed by the Frostmourne, so tormented the most, was kind of fine, so to say. It's not like Terenas was any significant light follower or something. Moreover, he was able to ressurect the champions just like that. How? Why? How could he have such powers?

Then he says that the Scourge must be controlled forever, else we will all be doomed. We all know how the community reacted to that. There isn't much logic to the "scourge without the LK will overwhelm the world" because 1). How would they even move out of Northrend 2). Our whole campaign to Northrend included greatly weakening the Scourge anyway. But you know, it's Terenas, former king of Lordaeron, so naturally Tirion trusts his judgement. In the end, another Lich King is "coronated" and the Helm does not get destroyed.

What does it mean? IMO it was NOT the spirit of Terenas, or - if it was - it was already corrupted by Maw powers and told us what the Jailer wanted him to tell us. He thought Arthas would last longer, but he didn't in the end, and Shadowlands weren't ready for Jailer's plan yet. So he either used Terenas spirit, or manifested as one himself, to make Tirion trust the statement of "you can't destroy the Lich King", he ressurected us to further increase this trust. The truth was that there's no need for the Lich King, we would be easily able to handle the remains of the "army", but Tirion was tricked by the Jailer to delay the destruction of the Helm, because he knew if the Helm was destroyed at that time, the veil wouldn't be shattered yet, and in the future, when the Jailer is ready, he would lack the tool to actually shatter the veil.

[Die]

The sad part is the glorified fanfiction writers at Blizz can't understand this.

Yeah, Blizzard doesn't know how to protect its lore at all and new writers are running roughshod over it and destroying it completely.