The Jailer: A completely ineffective villain

[iamthedevil]

OP lists all these people with a backstory for many years as being more effective than the Jailer. No shit lol? We are currently learning about the jailer. This is a pretty dumb observation and comparison.

[Aresk]

Because, again: We have no reason to believe the Jailer is after Azeroth. Escape is all they've alluded to him wanting, and Anduin to be turned into a "weapon" of some kind. Beyond that, we have no insight into the motivations of the Jailer.

Arthas was all about turning the denizens of Azeroth into an undead army, and the Jailer controls the Lich King, so we have more than enough reason to believe the Jailer is after Azeroth's people. We also know he wants a "herald" for some purpose, that Bolvar failed to fulfill that role, and that presumably Anduin is going to fulfill that role if the Jailer gets his way. We know from Dalora that he plans on remaking something (what the remaking is about was not explained) and that he wants Azeroth's worldsoul. To say that we have no reason to believe the Jailer is after Azeroth disregards the lore they've established in the pre-expansion event and the pre-expansion short story as well as what we've learned in the past week of Torghast quests.

[haiyken]

Why?

The only reason we care is because the Jailer was stupid enough to invade Azeroth, for an as-yet-not-explained reason, which is the reason for EVERYTHING about the Jailer right now. (Hence the lack of interest.)

If he didn't, we'd believe our dead went to whatever place we believed before. Because, again: We have no reason to believe the Jailer is after Azeroth. Escape is all they've alluded to him wanting, and Anduin to be turned into a "weapon" of some kind. Beyond that, we have no insight into the motivations of the Jailer.

So why should I care what his motivations are? If and when he's ready to play his hand so we can have ANY level of insight into who/what this otherwise un-noteworthy villain is, I'll start giving a damn, but we don't have any of that right now. We don't even have the reason why he gives any level of shit about Azeroth. So no, I don't give a shit about the Jailer as a villain, and no, I'm not going to "wait for them to tell us" because we should already know at least SOMETHING.[/B]

Man, don't get angry at me. We get it, you don't care about the Jailer... The thing is, you can't do anything about it other than wait for them to tell us. They planned some kind of story. It may be shit, it may not, but we can only wait for it to unfold.

I disagree with you that we don't know anything because of clear information from Denatrius and Sylvanas about his overall plans (and the interesting way they doesn't align with each other, meaning the Jailer is not honest with one or both of them about his end goal). We also know he's interested in Azeroth world-soul, as stated in the Maw introduction (The Jailer says: Death comes for the soul of your world! All that you see--all that you know--will be undone!). We can only start to make sense of the pieces of the puzzle we have and speculate about the future.

Even if we don't know much about the Jailer's plan, finding a way to rescue our world leaders is a more than fair starting point to the story of why we were sent to the Shadowlands with an elite squad of the Ebon blade. It's only during the original escape from the Maw that the existence of the Jailer is known to players and other characters. With the main leveling campaign, we understand how the machine of death is broken, where souls are redirected to and the existence of anima drought across the realms. I think the fact that every souls is sent to the Maw and enslaved, converted by the Jailer is an huge problem for multiple reasons : the fact that it empowers the Jailer in his goal to go after Azeroth world-soul and that the souls of everyone on Azeroth is basically going to hell. We didn't save the world multiple times to let them all suffer for eternity in the Maw... Doing the Kyrian campaign clearly shows us how this is f**ked up... All of this is, in my opinion, enough to make the Jailer a threatening villain to face. The fact that we don't know more about his end goal is not an issue because the treath we face is real, for all of the covenant realms and for Azeroth (it's safe to assume he's still helping the Scourge over there in some way).

You also have to understand that the story is basically on pause right now for 9.0, with Denatrius defeat. It's the end of chapter 1 in the story. And this story was pretty well laid-out if you're interested in it.

All of that said, you'll probably disregard all of this. I have little hope of changing your mind on this.

[BobAwesome]

you'd think people would form Jailer cults and make metal music in his name.

I mean... https://wow.gamepedia.com/Cult_of_the_Damned

[Beet]

Imagine bothering to post on mmochamp thinking your opinion is worth talking about.

also:

ok.

So basically you’re saying we shouldn’t have a forum at all? Neat.

As for the Op. I think Jailer is kind of cool myself. I’m one who’s hated the direction of WoW lore in recent years too but I find this guy interesting. I want to know more. I just don’t like the way they’re changing all the old established lore to say it was basically an imitation. I’d much rather have Jailor be separate from The Lich King entirely.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

I put it to you that the Jailer is a completely ineffective villain. I really don't care about him because I don't find him threatening at all. He just seems like a generic, pantomime villain that I had never heard of before he was thrust at us. Who is he? Why should I care? Even now, several weeks into Shadowlands, we have no real backstory for him.

He just seems incompetenent because the first time we see him he's just monologuing generic lines while we escape his apparently inescapable Maw. Lorewise and gameplay wise we make a mockery of this mysterious villain walking in and out of his domain at will. What were Blizzard thinking?



ILLIDAN/KJ ->THE LICH KING -> Deathwing -> Garrosh -> Grommash-Archimonde (meh) -> Argus (meh, I guess) -> N'ZOTH

...The Jailer?

IDK, I don't agree with the incompetence bit, even when so far he isn't interesting. Like everything is going according to plan with him; his goal is to break free, and by the time we manage to sort the shadowlands mess, he might fulfill his goals.

His backstory is mysterious, but his goals and motivations are in the open. He wants to Break Out. I do find him rather dry personality wise -and a more entertaining personality would be better- but the tension is there, it is us the ones against the clock here, not him.

[TheAld]

The issue with your statement is that you clearly think of the Jailer as a "character".

The Jailer is not a "character" (or at least not yet).
He is presented as a force of nature.

The reason for this is to keep his presence appropriate for his power level.
The Jailer is on par or even stronger than the Titans. Was he portrayed as an emotional figure with strengths/weaknesses he really wouldn't live up to being this "extreme force of death".
Deathwing, Argus and N'zoth are the same "forces of nature".

The more clear cut comparison to this would be Sauron from LotR movies.

You need to realize when it is appropriate to characterize your villains and when they just need to be there as an opposing force to be an obstacle.

I disagree. The Jailer has already been characterised by Blizzard making him have 'brothers and sisters', and being banished by them or 'wronged' a long time ago. We can infer he wants revenge/justice, that's why he is sabotaging the other realms of death. A force of nature doesn't have these motivations or traits. We will probably find out his full backstory soon and Blizzard will want us to feel sorry for him, but it'll fall short because of how ridiculously wooden he looks and sounds in every cinematic.

[Mashane]

I agree, but it feels like the jailer seems like he's written to set up another villain.

We're going to go into 9.1 and not really understand his motivations or objectives. If it wasn't for Pyromancer, Accolonn, and the other youtubers I would have absolutely no idea what is going on....so now we have a disjointed story being told in fragments among multiple perspectives.

[Soon-TM]

I disagree. The Jailer has already been characterised by Blizzard making him have 'brothers and sisters', and being banished by them or 'wronged' a long time ago. We can infer he wants revenge/justice, that's why he is sabotaging the other realms of death. A force of nature doesn't have these motivations or traits. We will probably find out his full backstory soon and Blizzard will want us to feel sorry for him, but it'll fall short because of how ridiculously wooden he looks and sounds in every cinematic.

Also this. His generic af one liners do not make him "mysterious", much less "endearing" - I'd very much watch paint dry rather than listening to that guy.

[Nastard]

What he did so far?

- Probably had something to do with Arbiter's slumber and pulling all of the souls/anima from 4 other realms to his own.
- Brought disturbance to bastion by raising Forsworn to his cause.
- Caught and jailed Maldraxxus leader and with that razed two houses and turned the rest against each other.
- Pushed one of the Eternal ones from the picture (Denathrius) while making him work for him worsening the draught in Revendreth.
- Screwed up the cycles of life and death in Ardenweald with the draught.
-
-
- Helm of domination, Frostmourne, Lich King (Remember Lich King, who showed up here and there through the expansion and had no direct influence up until ICC?)

Give it some time guys and girls..

Not to mention changing the flow of souls so that EVERYTHING in the universe that has died goes straight to the Maw instead of the afterlife they were supposed to go. The Maw is supposed to be the worst of the worst as far as suffering and pain goes. Nothing that has ever happened to a living being even compares to how awful the torture is in the Maw, and now EVERYTHING ends up there because of him. So quite literally, he's personally inflicted more pain than any other being that ever existed. By far.

At least on that level he's threatening, and makes me wonder "why does he do it?"

[haiyken]

Sorry, but if Chapter 1 of the story doesn't grab you, "Wait until you read Chapter 2" is not the correct answer. The PROLOGUE should have explained the motivation. Chapter 1 should have set up SOMETHING. It didn't. There is nothing worth looking forward to, because there is nothing worth building on right now. This is, at maximum, a 4 chapter story, with at least one chapter set up to delivering the next expansion - And one quarter of that story was spent not focusing on the main villain's set up.

You have no idea if this is a 4 chapter story. You don't know if the Jailer's story stop at the end of the expansion. We had multiple villains and characters used in multiple expansions like Gul'dan or Illidan. Just because we know the Jailer is supposed to be the end boss of the expansion, doesn't mean his story will stop there or that events he set into motion will be resolved.

You're dishonest in saying chapter 1 didn't setup anything. It did and I explained it in my previous post. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

I'm partisan to the idea of having the full story layed out to pass judgement on something, especially in a game like WoW. The fact that you're not interested in the story after having chapter 1 indicate only one thing : you don't like the story. The fact that you don't like the story doesn't mean the story is bad, only that it's not to your taste. I started plenty of books that are critically acclaimed and I couldn't care for them, didn't finish. I'm not gonna say these books are trash, only that they weren't for me. I'm okay with other people liking them.

My grip with you (and I'll stop replying after this because it's clearly pointless) is that you're hellbent on saying the Jailer is trash and the story is trash, and it doesn't add anything to the conversation. The lack of nuance in these kind of threads shows that people just like to complain and don't really want to figure things out and make a fair judgment of the Jailer with what we know and what we can expect. As soon as someone is shouting "it's trash", the thread is basically over because there is no discussion to have. You only want your opinion validated by other people calling it trash. I'm all for finding faults in the story and characters if they exist (and they do, as I admitted in my previous posts), but it's pointless if there is no nuance in the discussion and people can't accept other people arguments. /thread for me.

[MyWholeLifeIsThunder]

But WHY does he want to break out?

Don't get me wrong, the Maw seems like a pretty shitty place, but he also has basically free reign over the place. It's doubtful that he wants to escape just to escape. He must have some motivation, whether it's whatever got him put in the Maw in the first place or otherwise. Even if it came out that all he wanted was to destroy everything like Sargeras - Right now we don't even have that. All we know is he was put there for some reason. He wants to get out for some reason. He lies and deceives everyone, including those who are entirely subservient to him for some reason. He wants Anduin as a weapon for some reason.

The only reason we've gotten all launch long is how shitty the Maw is. But it's shitty because the Jailer makes it shitty. Literally all of the problems of the Maw seem to be created and caused by the Jailer again, for some reason.

It's would be like Sargeras if he'd never seen Azeroth before. Why would he be after Azeroth specifically if not for him seeing, and coming to the realization, that Azeroth's World Soul existed and was worth pursuing? It would make his relentless quest to reach Azeroth all the more confusing. Him showing up and being like "I KNOW YOU HAVE A WORLD SOUL AND I PLAN TO DESTROY YOU" would feel all the less worthwhile later, because yeah while a plan WAS THERE ultimately, there's no PAYOFF to that plan. There's no leadup - It just happens and you're told to accept it.

See, that's the thing, I don't think it's important to delve his motivation TBH; he's not meant to be a "relatable villain" nor I think he should be, I think it's okay if some villains have more of an narratively utilitarian purpose and then we are just done with them, but their effects change the status quo -like breaking the universe-

It might as well be that he just don't like his prison and wants to "rule all", instead of being confined to one realm. I don't feel his motivations have to "hit" from a character perspective, as he is more of a cosmic entity -and that's why Sylvanas serves as the villain with more human motivations, tho if you don't like Sylvanas that is not necessarily good-

From our perspective, if a villain wants to eradicate all life just to prevent it to be corrupted, or become the god of a new universe ruled by death, it's on the irrelevant side, they are both cosmic level threats, and whatever motivations they might have really don't come close to a "human" level.

Like, how would it change our perception of him as a character if we knew his specific motivation? Did you saw Sargeras on a different light when you learned that he wanted to prevent the corruption by the Void by erradicating all life?

[Chromell]

He just seems incompetenent because the first time we see him he's just monologuing generic lines while we escape his apparently inescapable Maw.

Well, most dialogues since Vanilla have kinda been like this. And it actually makes sense for us to have never heard of him since he's from another dimension/world/whatever. How many characters have we known that have gone to the Shadowlads and came back with deep and detailed info about it?

[Seasz]

I see no issues with him other than they making him too attractive for a villian. To the point of making wish to be in place of the primus, chained and getting abused whenever and however he pleases

You guys find the smallest single thing to complain about it's not funny at this point.

[naeblis495]

Big J : "Nothing Escape The Maw !"

Millions of players :*come and go as they please and destroy anything in sight inside the maw for months* LMAO.


That single line already make him lose any and all credibility instantly

And the dude isn't even capable of killing baine . BAINE !

[Yooginava182]

If you watched the newer cinematic with him and sylvannas, even what we did to Denathrius was all according to his plan. If he truly has been pulling all the strings since before wc3 then yea he would be chilled back. "pff look at my plan literally falling into place". We aren't even fully through the first patch of the game, and haven't personally delved into the jailers story yet.

wait till after the expansion is done to judge if he was a good villain or not.

[Arkthugal]

The dude can kill you just by paying direct attention to you for a few minutes, without even being anywhere near you.

[Lei]

If you watched the newer cinematic with him and sylvannas, even what we did to Denathrius was all according to his plan. If he truly has been pulling all the strings since before wc3 then yea he would be chilled back. "pff look at my plan literally falling into place". We aren't even fully through the first patch of the game, and haven't personally delved into the jailers story yet.

wait till after the expansion is done to judge if he was a good villain or not.

They have 3 patches to fully wrap him out. Jsut how heavy lore you expect after BfA and to a lesser extent, Legion? The big story goes incredibly slowly with things that matter. We get loads of campaign quests that matter less.

[ohwell]

Well, if they go with the way they are telling the story in BfA with Nzoth, he will just die randomly in one patch and never be looked back on.

Let's see Nzoth, the weakest old god, had his butt beat by Ysharj AND the titans, one of his biggest accomplishments was to piggy back off what Yogg did....the list of his incompetence, weakness, and failures really shows he got what he deserved and perhaps more than he deserved.

[Varitok]

Umm, no. The lich king was never anything more than some bland 'Saturday Morning cartoon' villian with his ridiculous, never-ending monologues and just walking away several times while we tear up his army.

Yeah I know I know big twist at the end it was a trick all along aha! Give me a break that's the same as some troll getting caught out in a lie and then going "nu uh I was just joking all along gotcha!". That dumbass tactic don't work here and it shouldn't work in wow lore, right? And even if you accept that garbage as good story-telling (it isn't) then it just so happens that Tirion is able to break out at the last minute to save the day, and not for the previous 15minutes we spent fighting the dude? Crap crap crap and you know it lol.

Also the ICC patch DESTROYED the lich king lore with it's shenanigans and all of the sudden there is this "there must always be a lich king" crap that never was mentioned in the previous 10 or so years, but fk it?

Lich King was a joke in-game and the jailer seems to be a carbon copy of him, so idk why u like one but not the other?


TLDR: Lich king watched and laughed as we decimated his entire undead army and generals. And he idly stood by while we rampaged his citadel and, again, killed all his most trusted and powerful minions. And he let us do all of this so he could "catch" us at the last minute (I guess he wanted an army of 25 people instead of 25,000????) and he couldn't even do that. Lich King did NOTHING. AT. ALL.

It don't get much more ineffective than that ladies and gents lmao

This army of "25 people" has wiped out every major villain in the game single handedly. So yeah, it was smart. He also, CANONICALLY KILLED US ALL. His plan work for all intents and purposes no matter how much you want to jump through hoops. It was the good guys who got the win due to pure convenience of Light intervention on top of the Lich Kings ego. Also, you sort of went off into lore of the Lich King which is not being discussed.

You can go ahead and try to dismiss it but his test was the gauntlet of disposable villains we'd get through to prove the worth of us, if we died on the way up he could just resurrect us anyways. A bit cheesy? Yeah, of course because most villains in any media are cheesy but it was all only saved due to MacGuffin on Tirions part.

I also can't really take your post serious because you're a bit sporadic on how you type and you completely suck out the artistic parts of story telling and boss design. Tirion popping out 3 minutes into the fight and breaking Frostmourne does not a good fight make. You're also just posting like a bit of a jerk, so yeah.

- - - Updated - - -

Even Tim Curry's' Pennywise was more effective.

Do you have King Anduin in a Can? You do? Well, you better let the poor Lion out. Muha muha muha