The Jailer's 5000 IQ Plan & Why People Are Angry (and wrong) About It

[@Radondon_]

Hi, reddit post guy here. Tali hit the nail on the head with the intention of the post, was a shitpost made after watching Nobbel play the PTR. I thought it was just absurd the idea he was behind everything and thought about all that had to happen in order for shadowlands to occur. I agree that his whole story is that of someone with nothing but time and that it wasn't a master plan crafted over two beers and a cold pizza. That's where the disappointment comes from and where I think many people can agree, the jailer is just boring. Whenever they talk about the jailer they describe him as deceptively cunning and it feels disconnecting to say that and never see it. Those descriptions work for someone like Denathrius, a wonderful character I wish we saw more of. If they had done another angle, that of the Jailer being an unstoppable force, something that cannot be killed and putting into mega hell being only a bandaid solution, that would have been much better imo. If the Jailer was written as this inevitable machine then I think players would have resonated more with him. They market him as this big bad that has seen everything we have ever done on Azeroth and make his goal clear and single minded to kill everyone it becomes far more appealing. I think it would have been badass if the Jailer was given the treatment Arthas had in the Halls of Reflection, a relentless power that is just coming for you and there is nothing you can do. Make Sylvanas scared of him as to have her become an ally, make him say less and have him speak through his servants so he is just an avatar of domination, bigger nipples. Thats just my personal opinion of the matter. I did really enjoy the video, never thought my shitpost would make it this far lmao. After stepping back from WoW and the story for a bit I've realized that I disliked the story for the wrong reasons, what I really had trouble with was the missed opportunities. Not about the writing staff or anything like that, its not cringe to be passionate, that was a poor take on my part in the past. Big ups all, Peace.

[@TaliesinEvitel]

Yay you made it! Just want to reiterate again how much I enjoyed your post :) and yeah I pretty much agree with all you say here too. Thanks for joining in ♡

[@Mukwiesel]

After reading your post and Talie’s take on it. I can’t help but feel like the dev team follow the same recipe for the game, for quite some time. Thanks for making my day a lil sweeter. :D

[@over6686]

I like the idea of Jailer being inevitable machine, but for thet to work he should just snap a neck of some important/strong character like Baine at the start of expansion for us to see it. We all can listen how powerfull he is but if we wont see it those are just blank words of lore writers that got no idea what they are doing. In the universe he killed someone like bane and then captured Anduin makes it far more interesting cuz we would know he could be dead on the spot.

[@r3v3rbs0ul]

What a wholesome response. You seem genuine to how you feel, yet also someone who takes self reflection seriously. Keep being awesome!

[@sheesh3214]

I miss bfa I had the most fun I’ve ever played in this game when I was playing my no Ice lance mage. Blizzard detected fun and destroyed my spec to the grave. Rip no ice lance rip

[@netbrood]

Next expansion, Zovaal will be a pawn in someone else's greater plan.

[@Thoms689]

It was Hogger all along

[@samiraperi467]

@@Thoms689 I mean, I wouldn't put it beyond him. :D

[@amartian2]

Zovaal is apparently a creation of the First Ones, as are the other Eternal Ones, clearly it's already established that he is a pawn.

[@vilgus7484]

A tiny worm crawls out of his ear after his defeat, "Fools! It was me all along!"

[@GarroshTV]

Mark my words: Zovaal is just a Pawn in the Game of the Primus and so are we, because we trust him. The Primus is the real bad guy and will use the Sepulcer to do something really bad!

[@Arborbor]

I would have loved a cut scene where jailer was just reflecting like "damn can't believe this finally worked lmao"

[@taneelbrightblade6622]

Baine saw it, that's why he threw him off the cliff. He needs the "Pitiful mortals" to think he has this planned out

[@bartofii]

Just imagine he's Momonga forcing himself to stay in character all the time.... Which might be a little too accurate if we then consider the writing team as Nazarick's personnel acting like it's actually genius master plays...

[@baconiam4027]

What i got from this is that the Jailer had a lot of free time, which actually explains the amount of pots in the maw

[@vanyel_etc8695]

Finally, a retcon worth implementing. Blizzard, get on it!

[@craigkenny37]

When you say the Jailer made those pots, for some reason my thoughts immediately went to the movie Ghost, with Patrick Swayze helping Demi Moore make a pot and failing. Would the jailer be Swayze in this instance? They're both shirtless so it makes sense. And who would he be embracing I wonder?

[@jb5096]

@@craigkenny37 THIS. My first thought as well after reading the comment. I imagined Zoval by himself listening to unchained melody making pots 😂

[@cornishpasty4344]

He went crazy at the pottery stand at the local flea market.

[@haklor5102]

@@jb5096 If this video proved anything, it was that this inevitably did happen.

[@grip7777]

The issue here isn't that there isn't a line of interpretation that could excuse the story, it's what you mention in the end (blizzard being unable to convey intended story). I think blizzard got caught up in trying to always hint at everything, which was done well sometimes in the past, but when the entire story is hinting it's not a story at all, it's "guess what I'm thinking?".

[@robertrouthier2603]

The part that is the most frustrating for me is that through legion and BFA there were opportunities to begin building the Jailor as a "big bad" if they had written it better. I mean all of the riddles and signs that pointed to old gods but also something more, why was nothing included that could be looked back upon as echoes of the Jailor, or something like that? I truly believe it's because they pulled him out of their ass at the last minute.

[@vanyel_etc8695]

@@robertrouthier2603 that's because they did. They had no idea what 9.1 was gonna be about until after 9.0 released, how can we possibly believe that the jailer has existed in the WoW Bible since legion? It's because he fuckin didn't. What did exist was "something even bigger than gods!" which, yeah, sure, we already know there's stuff bigger than gods and titans and all that junk because there's already void lords. The problem is the idea that they somehow give any shits at all about us. This is where it pisses me off. You don't see humans giving a fuck about ants when we do whatever we want, do we? No, we just do human stuff completely ignorant of the plight of ants. Eventually, the enemy becomes so mighty that we as the race of azeroth have no value whatsoever to them and they can just sargeras x10 and stab the shit out of the planet if they want to. This is exactly how the jailer *should* feel, considering his strength levels (literally stronger than sargeras according to blizzard) he should be impossible for us to destroy and we should instead be focused on empowering the other eternal one's to fight him while we do what we're good at (mass extermination of entire armies of similar strength) because that actually makes canonical sense.

[@kaidone1]

the problem is that the community believes a shitpost or streamer and doesnt think for themselves

[@moscanaveia]

@@robertrouthier2603 Not really. They were building the Jailer from as early as Legion prelaunch event. You know, the battle for the Broken Shore where against all expectations Vol'jin names Sylvanas the Warchief. They also pull Bolvar out of the freezer shortly thereafter. It's patently obvious the story of every expansion since Legion has had Shadowlands in mind, and it's also conspicuously obvious that people started complaining of all the overshadowing of future events around the same time. I agree it wasn't well executed, but to say they just made up the Jailer for Shadowlands is... Wrong.

[@AKA-cf4uv]

@@moscanaveia which is still ass storytelling tbh

[@greygramarye7872]

Couldn’t agree more about the “pitiful mortal” writing. I also want to veto any future characters speaking slowly and imperiously, like the Archon, the Winter Queen, the Fatescribe and all the others of his ilk, Elune, Alexstrasza, Ysera, basically anyone who’s like “Mortals, what you have accomplished is greater than any accomplishments of any accomplisher who ever accomplished.”

[@Ozeneu10]

At least BfA gave us a breath of fresh memes with "CHAMPIYEN, YA NEED TA HEEL AZEROF'S WOONZ!!"

[@monkeysk8er33]

These are literal gods. They're not going to talk like fucking casual mortal entities, and certainly won't talk like humans. You're in the wrong genre of fiction, if you don't like the way gods talk. 🤦

[@f1sken727]

@@monkeysk8er33 suck more copium, FF has gods too and they have a decent vocabulary atleast. You know, being gods.

[@Yegor06]

We NEED VAAS MONTENEGRO as wow villain

[@greygramarye7872]

@@monkeysk8er33 Denathrius and Bwonsamdi are gods, they don’t talk like that.

[@ianr8218]

The music for narrating the Jailer's Plans made me laugh hysterically. It really does feel like a suave group planning a casino heist!

[@Skyteks]

if you think about it... it actually is. A prison break, and a heist (stealing the whole damn universe and remaking it)

[@swordmonkey6635]

The Jailer takes off his helmet and it's Daniel Ocean!!

[@etrito7866]

Some weird and odd reason.. the mission impossible theme was playing in my mind when he explained the plan

[@txdmsk]

The music and the montage was galaxy brain god level ultimate SSJ5 humor!

[@txdmsk]

Anyone knows what the music is?

[@Ghastly1]

They could have just started at the part where a titan soul messes up the afterlife and the Jailer takes advantage of the situation. I like the idea of our big triumph at the end of legion having unforeseen consequences. It gives the players more motivation to solve the problem, cleaning up a mess we made. No need for the "just as planned" nonsense.

[@Epsyk]

And boy, we did mess up a lot of things. …Mmmmhmm Loot.

[@MarkZeroGaming]

The Jailer being the universe's greatest persistent opportunist is honestly the best possible interpretation of him. And, not for nothing, probably makes the most sense considering Danuser himself has written the Jailer by opportunistically connecting him to everything in the entire WoW story to try to justify him. I am very much looking forward to the Jailer not being a thing any more.

[@lukelorianTRON]

At the end of the Sepulcher we rewrite existence so the jailer is no longer a thing. Ezpz

[@Mitcheeta]

I don't actually think Tali is right when he says the Jailer was persistently trying over and over until something worked out, this idea the Jailer tried countless different ideas over the ages is pure fiction the only instance we get of his plans failing is the Lich King. Also things don't just "conveniently" work out like Tali says i.e. according to the dreadlord journal they knew the titans could be fractured/the other forces could be pitted against the Void, Sargeras didn't just accidentally run into void dreadlords who told them about the Void it was set up for a specific response and the forces of death probably knew Argus would disrupt the Arbiter / Lich King hat opens a portal to the Shadowlands and weren't just convenient accidents either. edit: I say this to explain what I think the writer intention was and not what I'd say is better storytelling

[@jackalo34]

the sad thing is ff has that exact thing with the ascians but at least we kno about their existence in arr and we see ther plans fail several times as we thwart them time and time again.

[@troqu]

@@jackalo34 Yep you need to see a villian fail at least once before you can pull the "he's definitely been trying and failing a lot in the background" card. Also helps to not use the "never known defeat" card.

[@atibamaule]

This is kinda how the Void lords try and try over and over to corrupt sleeping titans by sending out their Old Gods to as many planets as they can.

[@Lentilshine]

Can you imagine how cool it would've been if they'd really leaned into the patience thing and had him quite polite and reserved, covering his own fury with a smile and waiting for time to win out. Great video, definitely agree that it's a terrible missed opportunity.

[@barra193]

So basically how Denathrius, the only decent villain in the Shadowlands was? Hmm....

[@Asheriancommand]

Like most of the expansion its a missed opportunity. A soft spoken villian who actually has a point hasn't happened ONCE in WoW lore. Its all manical power hungry people. The jailer is just thanos collecting super powers to make reality in his own image. Its not properly built up and calling him thanos is a desservice to Thanos who was built up after several movies and had an entire movie DEVOTED to him and made him the protoganist.

[@aaroniouus]

I like that idea, and the domination magic could have come from persistent whispers of suggestion into those he dominates, rather than what is basically Mind control.

[@DISTurbedwaffle918]

@@aaroniouus Kinda like how Frostmourne corrupted Arthas, so it seems Domination magic in its most original form in the lore was exactly that: whispers of suggestion that gradually eat away at your will to resist until you eventually succumb.

[@ethanhunsaker9363]

Ugh YES! i think it would have been cool to have him as a foil to denathrius who is obsessed with extravagance and elegance where the jailer could be humble patient and simple but absolutely determined.

[@axeman515]

Honest critique of this take, the writer described the jailer as a person "who has never known defeat". But wouldn't some of these "failed strings" you are describing count as defeats? This is the best justification I've heard of the jailer as a character but even this fall apart because of something the writers themselves have said. So as much as i like this take it doesn't seem like this was their intention. It really feels like they are trying to give him credit for the whole series of events.

[@laurennightingale4752]

Yea that was written on the PTR, but not in game yet. The Jailer can say whatever he likes tho, just like the magician who edited out all his failed attempts to land ten heads in a row. He would want us to think everything happened the way he wanted it.

[@epic-o2215]

well technically you cant consider someone defeated until they have given up, or are no longer able to keep trying. So no, he has never known defeat, only failures.

[@ddenozor]

well he was defeated by his college improv team wasn't he?

[@Qprah]

@@ddenozor But dont you see? It was merely a setback! we've come full circle lmao.

[@Keira_Blackstone]

saying the Jailer has 'never known defeat' is completely nonsensical. His siblings trapped him in Super hell. Defeat is his defining characteristic.

[@Benislionheart]

This would be a great interpretation if there were enough in-game story telling elements that tied all this together, in this way. I don't feel like that. You shouldn't be explaining Blizzard's story for them - they should, and indeed must, tell their story better and more cohesively.

[@oniros80]

1000%

[@Red1Green2Blue3]

Exactly.

[@mehvgaminz5163]

THIS!

[@johnnydaugherty11]

He says this at the end of video.

[@spaceowl9246]

So, how do I know Talies explanation is how blizzard has actually intended it? From all I know and from all they said, they want me to think that he's that 34569083456890D chess playing dude that predicted everything, so I take them for their word.

[@braxis9703]

The main issue with Tali's explanation is that still that the Jailor did all this for Millenia from super-hell without anyone noticing, which is still a bit ridiculous

[@MeTakingAStand]

Not really--the Jailor needed the sigils to "break out" of the Maw, and it would've been safe to assume that he couldn't break free if the other Eternal Ones still had their sigils. Considering Denathrius was always loyal to the Jailor--just secretly--this makes it a lot more plausible that nobody would've known.

[@OhNoTheFace]

@@MeTakingAStand Delicious copium

[@wb3159]

Honestly worse than him planing it all along. It assumes that you can make unlimited attempts, but thats a bad assumption.

[@bosinclaire7670]

Also not helped that his annology of you can keep flipping a coin until it works, isn't quite true.. Theres not an infinite amount of times you can flip a coin if it lands on tails you die GG no re said things gone.. but you needed it to go the correct way else whoops..

[@no-budhee6657]

@@OhNoTheFace the true response of someone without the capacity to formulate their own opinions.

[@GrayveStone]

The fact you have to keep explaining what the wow writing teams are doing is just more proof they aren't doing a good job.

[@rudytjhia8199]

he did say that in the end of his video

[@ffxfoerever]

yeah it makes me sad, two week without a T&E vid and this is what we get...

[@Vinzenzx]

Kinda... but that does not excuse the community to be dumb as fuck

[@Lentilshine]

Tell me you didn't watch the video without telling me you didn't watch the video.

[@SadGinseng]

@@Vinzenzx Tali doesn't show any evidence for his theory. so it is just a theory that only exist to try to explain/defend the absolute shit show that is Shadowlands writing. Literally nowhere in game there are any hints of the jailers having multiple failed/diverging schemes. We know that everything he and his allies did was part of his plan to free himself and "rewrite reality".

[@butterflysrage]

Tali, the only problem with the "scattergun" idea is that it assumes that no one is paying any attention at all to the failures he has faced. All it would take would be one screwup showing up on the radar of the other Eternals for them to realize "Nipples is up to something, we need to figure out how" for them to discover the Dreadlords, Denny's betrayal, etc... and it all comes crashing down.

[@DeadnCold]

Maybe that is exactly what did happen, and Denathrius was the one who discovered it and that's how he came to work with Zoval.

[@somejester8909]

@@DeadnCold He needs Denathrius to do anything.

[@moscanaveia]

The whole thing about the Eternal Ones is that they are stubborn about their Purpose. Every single one (bar Grandpa Beards) has their head too far up their ass to presume the Maw is anything but inescapable rathee than a threat. And when they come close to figuring it out, like with Uther, the Jailer is quick about closing off the leaks to keep his enemies' faith in their precious Arbiter

[@DeadnCold]

@@moscanaveia Yes. Possibly because he learned from his previous mistake that alerted Denathrius. That is one of the biggest parts of the scattershot technique, you learn from everything that happens, both good and bad. He would know he got lucky it was Denathrius that noticed his scheming so he would have to be more careful in the future. Or in the case of the Primus, intentionally bait him so that he could enslave him.

[@marama9845]

We know that almost happened with Uther and Devos but the Archon refused to believe it was possible and the jailer got more allies out of it. Who's to say that hasn't been happening all along with the eternal ones refusing to see it, because "nothing can escape the maw".

[@baconpwn]

The Jailer's plan is exactly like being a DM for a group of murder hobos. You have no idea how or what the endgame will be. But when you look back, everything looks like you plotted it immaculately. Even though you spent the whole time praying your idiots leave you a plot thread or two you can use. Honestly, it's the part of the expansion that made the most sense to me

[@taneelbrightblade6622]

Literally my favorite part of dming

[@parafoxl7619]

Now imagine if they brought this concept into game. "DEATH bides it's time. It's not in a rush. Doesn't need luck. It's truly inevitable as this creature plays his cards as best as he can until finally he draws that crucial ace..." Man that could've been a cool story :/

[@Caiphex]

This is literally something blizzard could have integrated into the game from vanilla. There could have been ruins, ancient texts, information we gain from the legion, information we get from draenor, information we get from the deny when they crash land on azeroth.... The point is Blizzard could have set the story up over literal decades of gameplay but they didn't know this was a story they were going to tell and hadn't written it. Because of the modern production cycle from Blizzard entertainment business model they simply don't have the story fleshed out this many expansions in advance anymore. It's hard to put the time and development into a story you know you're going to tell someday while also having the resources to put time and development into all of the other stories you need to tell before you get there.

[@risunokairu]

All five pieces of the puzzle! EXODIA, the Forbidden One!

[@axeman515]

Exactly this. I've always imagined the personification of death would be a super chill "no rush" kind of person. Because they know you can never escape them in the end.

[@cthylla5197]

"... could have been a cool story" This has been the state of WoW for .. *sigh*.. a while.

[@DrTopologist]

Kind of like how in Lev Grossman's book, The Magicians, when Quentin was wondering how he was the special one to be able to defeat the big baddie, he was told something like "you weren't that special... this is our 4,718th attempt at this, we just kept altering things each time until we found the combination that worked... you just happened to be one making the attempt at the first success."

[@elorateq3672]

Or the New Year episode of Doctor Who, where they were stuck in a time loop and had to try again to beat the Daleks.

[@hap1984]

If the jailer had so many defeats, how can you explain the dungeon journal that reads: "For millenia, Zovaal manipulated forces throughout the universe to place him in this position of power. At this final step, the heroes of Azeroth rally to fight a cosmic being who has never known defeat."

[@highbrowstonebender7063]

"There's never been an Emet-Selch baddie in Warcraft" Boom. On brand with this video, think about how many pies Emet and his buddies have their fingers in and how when one plan failed, he took the pieces and used them on other plans he had in motion to continue moving towards the same endgame goal. See, I can buy into "The Jailer plucked the results of chaotic events and constructed his own machine using those results as pieces" but the fact that all of this came to light after Blizzard's self destruct and withering in the shadow of FFXIV. I don't think the writers are smart enough to have this by design. They scrambled to provide some sort of resolution that makes it all seem worthwhile when in reality it was a bunch of convoluted directionless garbage. Final Fantasy delivered an almost perfectly woven tapestry telling a complete story with no loose threads. Blizz panicked and tried to do the same, yielding an ugly holiday sweater at best.

[@preds43]

The Jailer existed around 2019, yeah? Prolly was inspired by both this and Dante’s inferno Satan tbh. The Old Gods are just Lovecraft rip offs

[@garouchieflol]

Ff14 during the exam: let blizz copy my test and let blizzard deliver first then erase it and send the real test and blizzard got fucked at the end with a story so bad it makes games of thrones final season look like a masterpiece.

[@darcwow]

Honestly don't think you're right on this one. Blizz already shared that they are working on more than one expansion ahead so that artists have enough time to come up with designs for the art & assets, and that major plot points are already decided multiple years ahead. This alone means that the jailer was already in the works back when legion was released. Sure not everything was set in stone (remember the previewed design with a long beard ?) There are plenty of reasons to complain about the writers, but this sounds like the original plan for the jailer : the immortal prisoner who kept trying and eventually escaped. I mean this should sound familiar right ? "Blizz had a good idea but the implementation was terrible". Basically sums up the past 3 expansions.

[@Junebug89]

Nah there were clues that a lot of this stuff was tied to Zovaal before Blizzard's implosion. Ties between the dreadlords and Denathrius for example were established in notes at Shadowlands launch. They were planning this for... some amount of time prior to the implosion, hard to say what. They just did it badly.

[@alexpaul4144]

Closest we ever had was arthas imo but still not even close to the masterpiece (an my all time fav ff villain) that is emet

[@tholos2758]

My issue isn’t with the specificity of how things would have gone for the Jailers plot to have unfolded as it did, ofc things will have happened on their own that the Jailer can take advantage of. The trouble is we have no idea what was the Jailer and what wasn’t, somehow the Jailer convinced Sylvanas to his side but they never show or tell us how, what does it mean that the system is flawed? Why does reality need to be reshaped for it to be just? All we get is a line from Uther saying ‘the jailer is real cunning dudes’. This giant bald obviously evil guy is somehow convincing people he’s a good guy so effectively that they do obviously evil things on his behalf but still know nothing about his motivations except ‘I’m gonna remake reality from a reality that is flawed to one where I fuck everyone forever!’ I feel like the whole Jailer is 9000 billion IQ thing comes from the fact that all the npcs talk about how cunning and deceptive he is, how his plans were unfolding the whole time and nobody realized and that all his pawns are falling into place, BUT IT NEVER TELLS OR SHOWS US HOW, IT JUST SAYS ITS HAPPENING

[@eocan]

I agree with you 100%. The main issue in the story telling is leading on the spectator to think that the Jailor is playing 7D chess, through affirmation of Main characters Like Silvanas and Uther. Your brain goes. "Maybe it's just luck" but then you have Uther saying how cunning he is makes, you second guess they story they're trying to convey. Sadly that's how the story will be remembered

[@PatrickHenryWoW]

...obviously horrible things have been convinced by others to be good things for most of human history. It's not that far off from possibility by any stretch of the imagination.

[@GruppeSechs]

I haven't played Shadowlands, so I dunno how much of his motives are tied to the jailer, but that's exactly the problem with Sargeras the moment you learn his motives. He wanted to destroy every world soul so the void lords couldn't make evil corrupted things... and then what? Emptiness in the cosmos just to spite the void dudes? Is nothing better than something with a little bit of rot around the edges? Such a lazy justification. Maybe if they just wrote him as a crazy power hungry titan with no sense in his head, sure. Even evil people have end goals other than utter annihilation. Where's the fun in that for them?

[@RazanaArcclaw]

he didnt tell us how, but sylvanas did. he told her a lie, and we see that lie as she literally tells us and anduin in a cinematic "Life is but a flciker, a moment, compared to the infinite eternity that is the afterlife. And yet what you do in that flicker of life decides what afterlife you must spend eterntiy in! We have no free will, for we are tricked form birth. We are going to unmake the shadowlands, remake it into one that is just. One that will give us control of our afterlives" Boom there ya go, he told her just that, just as sylvanas does to anduin to try and convince him.

[@vanyel_etc8695]

@@PatrickHenryWoW I don't often see the term "cunning" being used to speak of the evil men and women of history. Hitler was cunning, but its the least important trait about him. It feels more like when danuser makes the characters say the bad guy is cunning, he's just sucking his own dick

[@ThorfinnGrimhowl]

Persistence being the jailer's secret weapon fits right in with him being a cardboard cutout villain who the game tries to make you believe is the evillest evil who ever eviled. Zovaal is such a boring adversary, especially as the main villain of an expansion. Our characters are forced to act surprised when the quests have railroaded us into doing exactly what he wants, even though we can see the consequences coming a mile away while our ageless allies are walking into traps so obvious they have "Trap" written on them in 30ft. tall letters with multiple giant red arrows pointing to where the trap is.

[@Ken-hn6yl]

im very happy that Tali and Evi have managed to come up with a workable fix to the events that blizz have put forth, but this is all pretty much fan speculation and inference. the whole point of good writing is to make the story clear, not to have the person experiencing the story write half of it for them. do while they fixed the story here, it doesnt mean that blizz didnt intend for the jailor to have only taken a single plan route that required a 5000iq 5d chess play.

[@Kadash10]

I would buy this interpretation if instead of being a big nipply blue man with a deep echo voice, the Jailor was instead this crazed and cackling madman, and he was portrayed more as an insane gambler who wins in unexpected ways, being incredibly resourceful with what winnings he *does* get in order to further his plans, turning even losses into victories. That would be a much more interesting villain and your version of events would be much more believable and make more sense. ...unfortunately that's not what we got and that's not what Blizzard is saying, so...even if it does make for a better story...it just doesn't seem to be the path that Blizz is taking.

[@frapuz]

I would buy this interpretation if Blizzard didn't explicitly said: "The Jailer: For millenia, Zovaal manipulated forces throughout the universe to place him in this position of power. At this final step, the heroes of Azeroth rally to fight a cosmic being who has never known defeat." Never known defeat? He's been defeated thousands of times at this point!

[@maxwang956]

He's not a gambler though. A gambler takes risks and has something to lose, the Jailor does not. He's already in super-hell there is nothing you can do to him that would be worse that what he's already experiencing. He has no reason to not keep flipping that coin because he risks nothing and has everything to gain.

[@melonman6522]

There is still a bad part to this explanation. That means the Jailer has been throwing spaghetti at a wall for an inconceivable amount of time without anyone not in the Shadowlands being aware of his existence and no one in the Shadowlands noticing a wall with a bunch of spaghetti on the floor nearby. When he just has the one plan, even if that plan was absurd and ridiculous, it was fairly easy to stay inconspicuous, but with him having a bunch of failed plans? It seems like SOMEONE would have noticed.

[@mactassio21]

pretty much, also how come the jailer was free to do so much for so long? Wasn't the whole point of throwing him in there to cut him off? Not to mention this opportunity that finally presented itself only did so by making all characters incredibly stupid. Sargeras ? Dumb , Sylvannas? Dumb, Voljin? Dumb as fuck , Thrall? Dumb as fuck , Anduin? fucking dumb . The vold lords ? actually just pretty dumb. By making the jailer the villain with a plan (or billions of plans) they had to make all the other characters incredibly dumb and its such awful storytelling.

[@speedy22222]

IMHO that would've been plausible if they'd written the Jailer with that in mind. It's downright ludicrous for a character to be able to predict everything the jailer did. What *isn't* out of the realm of possibility is for a character to be sneaky and conniving enough to keep such an approach hidden for millennia - impressive, extremely difficult, yes - but not impossible. All he has to do is play it conservatively and keep his head down. Which, if the Jailer we'd been presented with had been, say - not super powerful, but actually shown to be cunning and clever? Totally plausible.

[@Saintphoenix86]

He had Sire to cover anything up that might leak, its not that hard to believe, i have long stopped playing WoW coz it sucks but its important to hate it for the right reasons

[@andrewshandle]

God bless Tali for clinging to his belief that there is any logic behind this stuff. Even assuming that The Jailer is still the ultimate opportunist, which clearly makes sense in many cases (like Sylvanas un-living herself and him striking the deal with her), the one thing he seems to forget is the reason the Darren Brown's show worked so well and was so memorable is they they went out of the way to show all the failures involved in making the impossible inevitable. SL doesn't do that, all we see is everything work out exactly in The Jailer's favor. The main issue remains that even if the Jailer had millions of other irons in the fire, a good half of them he needed to succeed to escape happened in like 2 year span. So either your antagonist is playing 5D chess instead of 7D chess (so, still ridiculous), or he's this incredibly lucky guy who won 5 lotteries the same week he needed to escape so really he's just a tool. EDIT: FWIW, I don;'t think Tali is a shill for thinking this, everything he said could be consistent with the story as we've been given, I just can't see it going that way or they would the given us more info that this was how he worked...plus we just _know_ Danuser is going to go the 7D chess route.

[@rudlw7937]

So what if everything happened within a 2 year span? The whole point of the video is exactly that. With enough time and attempts, it is perfectly possible and even inevitable for things to line up exactly right to happen in quick succession (like the 10 consecutive heads), just like it is entirely possible for a guy to win 5 lotteries in the same week (no luck required). The timespan isn't the issue. It's that we never get to see any of his failed attempts (assuming the Jailer is an opportunist instead of a chessmaster), which you yourself has pointed out is what made Brown's show work.

[@Saintphoenix86]

Im guessing you didnt actually watch the video at all, coz it explains how the winning 5 lotteries in the same week can happen, i have long stopped playing WoW because its a peice of shit game with a shit story, but at least hate it for the right reasons

[@andrewshandle]

​@@Saintphoenix86 I did watch the video in fact, it's pretty clear that I watched the video. You T&E fans take a theory of his, treat it like gospel and don't even bother challenging it at a all, given that you don't even play the game anymore (by your own words), you don't realize that Tail's theory is ridiculously flawed. The idea that picking five lotteries in a row is the equivalent to the Jailer shows a glare lack of understanding of the situation. Picking lotteries is only applicable given infinite amount of time and an infinite amount of _repeatable_ events. "Repeatable Events" is the key to it. That's not what happened in the WoW story, _all_ of the events that happened here he had just one chance to get it right, and every single one of those he got perfect. This also destroys his "climbing" metaphor too, because he is considering every event to be an equal hand/foot hold, and this is no the case either. This is not a "go back in time after each failure and adjust" type scenario that many people are comparing it to. Take Argus for example, centuries ago the Jailer had to make a decision based on nothing but luck, but that exactly decision had to bear fruit at _exactly_ the same time as a bunch of other events, this is not even remotely what Tali discussed in this video. A comparison would be that this Darren Brown also had guessed that the races at the horse track would be cancelled because a giant meteor would crash into the race track at the same time...but the meteor only was redirected to earth because Voyager 2's existenece in the outer solar system in the late 1990s caused just a mircoscopic change in course 31 years ago too make it happen. Each decision that the Jailer made had significantly more weight on the success of his plan that "just picking 7000 variations of horse races", because in that case every decision is of equal value and has a very small, finite chance of winning (the number of horses in the race), where as planning something that kills the Arbiter has not only infinite possible solutions, your given solution as to occur at the same time as 2 or 3 other infinite events. It's 100% fine to be a fan of Tali (as I clearly am), but still be critical of a theory he has and not just automatically say it's true because he posted a video on it.

[@andrewshandle]

​@@rudlw7937 "The whole point of the video is exactly that. With enough time and attempts" And this is where the video is completely wrong. What the Jailer did is _nothing_ like that. The Jailer had limitations on the number of attempts he could make at each outcome, he didn't just get to try a second, third, forth (or 20 millionth) time. He got _one_ chance at things, and if they failed they were removed from the board...but with these he never failed in a way that prevented him winning. This is the part you and Tali are missing, it also shows that his comparison to rock climbing is completely off because he treats every hand/foot hold as equal events, and he assumes you get an infinite number of attempts to climb to the top, but failing just one foot/hand hold blows up the entire mountain and you have to go find a new mountain. The Jailer's plans involved making decisions that played out over thousands of years with infinite, unknown outcomes...and he lined up a number of these all to happen at the same time. This is beyond anything anyone could ever attempt to achieve in anything but an infinite amount of time and with the ability to attempt an infinite number of choices at each step, which the Jailer didn't have. Take Argus, unlike the horse races where Brown just picked every horse as a winner, the Jailer had just _one_ shot, and if he was wrong about Death Magic, if Argus dies too early, if Argus never dies or if any of another infinite outcomes outside "Argus dies _exactly_ when he needs to", his _entire_ plan fails. To you and me the Jailer might have been in the Maw for a long time, but in the scale of the Universe he's been there for barely the blink of an eye, he would need _way_ longer to escape if it just involved him throwing a bunch of irons in the fire and hoping for enough sh!t to come up that it'd get him out. The backbone of Tali's entire theory is that Jailer had time and failed a lot, but the problem is he's using 7000+ variations of some horse races as the basis for his argument, when what happened here is infinitely more less likely to occur, and involves "horse races" taking place across the entire Universe and near infinite time scales. If the Jailer launched one "plan" a day for every day he was in the Maw it still wouldn't be close to enough plans to line up to do what he needed to do. I get _why_ Tali wants his theory to be true, because it least it makes for a better theme of the Jailer, the whole "Death is Inevitable" (despite the fact that the Jailer is incredibly _inpatient_ in game), but the reality is, on the surface Tali's theory makes zero sense based on what he already know has lined up to make his plan a success.

[@rudlw7937]

@@andrewshandle ​ You are right in that the Jailer's plans aren't "repeatable events with finite outcomes", and that's where the analogy with Brown's works breaks down. His plans are more akin to a Xanatos Gambit (and variants thereof). He can have a thousand plots in motion, of which most of them will fail. But the ones that don't lead to dead ends will possibly open the door to a thousand other ways to advance. He likely didn't plan further that 2-3 steps ahead, but is always getting closer to his goal no matter what, hence the inevitability. There is a theoretically infinite number of ways for him to kill the Arbiter, possibly many that didn't even involve Argus at all. The Jailer didn't have just one shot. He had hundreds, maybe thousands of shots. All he needed was one to succeed. I think this is the part that isn't explained as well in the video. The Jailer isn't repeating the same plan(s) hoping for a different outcome. He is taking the outcome of the previous plan(s) (whatever it may be) and building a hundred new plans on top of it. Repeat that enough times and the Arbiter (eventually) dies. Also disagree on the whole "scale of the Universe" thing. Yes, the (Warcraft) Universe is incomprehensibly old. But so are the Titans. And the Old Gods. And the Pantheon of Death. Heck, we don't even have a definite scale for how old the Dragon Aspects are. You are trying to ascribe a time limit to what are essentially timeless beings. Who is to say how long or how many attempts he has or needs in order for one of his random plots to bear fruit in swift and unexpected ways? If he had waited a million years for this opportunity and it fails, as long as it doesn't kill him, who is to say he can't wait a million more for the next opportunity? Nothing we've seen yet implies that this was a do or die situation for him. All that said, I am not defending Talis' theory saying that is exactly what is going on, merely pointing out that it makes sense and is a perfectly plausible way for them to take the character.

[@ShadowTheHedgehogCZ]

The fact that the Jailer just does whatever benefits his view and uses opportunities that give him an advantage isn't really... "interesting" concept. Because that's what every single villain ever always does. Hell, it's what every single character ever does. That's really nothing new or revolutionary. That's just normal. What is not normal, and what sucks with Jailer, is that we are TOLD that he planned all of this for millenia. We are never told this about any other villain. Sargeras never planned for any complicated outcomes, he was very brazen and straight forward. Same with Garrosh. Lich King maybe had a plan, but it wasn't complicated at all. Maybe the only villains who were insane plotters were the Old Gods. But your explanation for Jailer in this video applies to them more than it applies to him. With Jailer, we are just told he is very sophisticated. But why? Why wouldn't they just approach him like every other villain who just does what he does? I guess that the Old Gods are a big reason why. Because they are the actual 4D chess masters, since they see the future, they make constant whispers, predictions, prophecies... And because those are coming true, we were lead to believe that the Jailer was also planning all of this. And since he used the approach of the Old Gods in his planning, we were made to think he stole their shtick and became even more perceptive than them.

[@chrissyleena2633]

Since it came up recently: It's the same principle as the one that drives the Fermi paradox. The chance of extraterrestial life is incredibly small - we have an inkling of just how many things need to happen *in a row* for life to blossom. But out there are trillions of trillions of worlds, so even with the ridiculously low chance of life blossoming so many worlds should have all of its conditions met out there. (Thus Fermi asks 'Where are they?') As humans with short lifespans, 'countless millenia' is something we simply cannot grasp. An opportunist just sticking his finger in every pie for every day of trillions of trillions of years will eventually have the pie containting that lottery ticket. How did the lottery ticket end up in the pie? Funny that you ask, because this odd sequence of events led to it.... I really like your take on this. They should've made Zovaal a suave guy continuously surprised by how this oddity of events has worked, almost giddy now that things are once again so close to working out. Almost a fan of ours, since we enabled so much of this oddity.

[@Oppurtunafish]

yeh same idea where if you were shaking a trillion 1000 piece jigsaw puzzles for a trillion trillion years, eventually one of them would have all the pieces join together in the correct formation

[@DISTurbedwaffle918]

The first time he sees us he almost loses his composure with glee, since we set everything up for him to get here. Proceeds to offer us a chance to be his own champions because having us on his side would be objectively preferable to not having us on his side.

[@nakenmil]

This reminds me of how in the early days of WoW, Blizz would try to link the the Old Gods to almost everything and anything, and it got real obvious real quick how it was retrofitted. Later they began spinning new lore and stories with the Old Gods and the Titans, and it felt more like it justified its own existence (even if the payoff has never really been all that great.)

[@stephen8342]

Old gods were at least scary and completed the circle of mysterious higher powers at war. And also we’re not bald men with no shirts

[@monkeysk8er33]

You're an idiot if you think the payoff hasn't been great, and that the retrofitting didn't work. It's worked phenomenally. Name one thing that doesn't make sense, and I'll gladly educate you on why it works.

[@omgraggy5358]

@@monkeysk8er33 why so agro

[@Finny_.]

The story they're telling has so much potential that it's sad to see how they are executing it in the game. I think they tried too hard on making the Jailer look edgy and cool like the Lich King in WotLK but the difference is that we knew it was Arthas, someone we loved and saw him get to that point. Here in Shadowlands, we know nothing of how Zooval lived or felt during his eternity in the maw, we have no reason to care for him either, in-game he's just this big bad guy who says edgy stuff once in a while and then does something we have no idea about and it's really frustrating thinking about what it could've been by hearing Tali here :(

[@Eroll-dw8ex]

I dont see the potential ?

[@Bramble20322]

@@Eroll-dw8ex Same, they're just making generic baddies at this point and desperately trying to retcon a connection of these villains to the past baddies to justify their existence. This is just shit writing by untalented people on leading positions. There's no potential here, just generic shit. Even dumb generic shonen anime villains are better than this.

[@bishop1412]

They should have made uther the villain 5head

[@ultravioletcatastrophe]

I wish they'd have villains like in FFXIV (and eastern MMOs in general): kinda animey, giving soft and feminine vibes. That would immediately make them so much more interesting than generic raspy voice evil edgelord badguys

[@EveryonelovesE360]

Part of me thinks they started to make the jailer sympathetic. He's going to unmake reality, bring justice to us all. Then it got to be too difficult to tell that story, or they ran into a problem, so they scrapped the idea and we got an easy to write vanilla baddie. We still see bits of the more complex, sympathetic, villain he could have been, but that character got killed by convenience and a missing act in the story.

[@kutlumzrak2689]

Emet Selch would snap Zovaal out of existence with a half smile on his face and with a quip to boot in his smooth voice, then sit down and sneer at the Champions for their inadequacies.

[@Nobbel87]

Lmao not even you can spin this to make it better aww man, gonna roll my eyes some more. Honestly prefer 5d chess head over random speghetti tosser who fills titan souls with death magic for no reason besides he can.

[@orkunakman1541]

Oh my God, thank you, THANK YOU. Like wtf was that part even, "pump the Titan full of death magic because why not?" The guy is jumping through more hoops than circus lions to excuse a bad story.

[@blanco2407]

I agree, stop trying to make sense of the mess they created

[@freefrag1910]

that is called opportunism. do what you can do to get allies. if it works, nice. if not, try something else until it clicks. pretty solid explanation and no doomsayer can argue against it.

[@DurendilLeHunt]

To be fair, it is kind of clear they are making things up - although it could be true, I doubt it's what blizzard has planned. Still like the videos, it gives an idea of what a proofreading of their story could have been.

[@MortalWombatI]

If only Blizz could sit down and DECIDE on a good course of action/group of villains for the next few years or so and actually work towards them and build them up, rather than just vomiting out “rule of cool” cinematics all over the PTRs and hoping the playerbase gets hyped for their next rough draft storyline.

[@WarchiefPeebs]

You know… one small cinematic showing him failing over a millennia… maybe with different races. Maybe with him ending up in deeper parts of big bad he’ll for getting caught… 5 minutes would have made him more interesting. It’s a sin really. And emet is one of my favourite bad guys in a while. Still no Kefka… but pretty good

[@SpodsandRockers]

we don't even need that. Just get Blizz to add a bunch of books in Torghast or SoD that are diary entries of the Jailer going "Huh... that worked?" Hey it worked with the dreadlords.

[@lyotesharaia4829]

I'd like to believe you in this Tali, I really truly would. The problem is .. I don't trust Blizzard. At all. Everything they've been showing with Zovaal has been pushing towards the idea that Zovaal planned everything from the start so that we would care about him. They clearly want us to think he is a galaxy brain super villain. He would have been a WAY more interesting villain if they portrayed him to us as wholly oppurtunistic this whole time.

[@mapsgoonthewall5396]

This is where I am. Blizzard has led us down this path that the jailor is playing 5d chess. What Tali is explaining is not accurate, it's just him headcanoning the overall plot of the story to be better.

[@orkunakman1541]

@@mapsgoonthewall5396 Yes, that's just it. He's just headcannoning while telling us what we have gleaned from the story so far as it's been told is wrong.

[@OhNoTheFace]

On the plus (?) side, his explanantion is actually even sillier, convoluted, and full of even more retcons then the 5d chess thing

[@clydemasterson1129]

@@mapsgoonthewall5396 I definitely don't know the story well enough to take sides, but I'm genuinely curious. Specifically what has Blizzard done, or put into the story, that makes the 5d chess interpretation more viable than the opportunistic, "millions of attempts" interpretation that Tali is presenting?

[@goblinounours]

Just gotta point out that when I saw the title, my first thought was "Of course Taliesin would say the players who think something is dumb are wrong!". That's very much on-brand. And yes, Tali is right, I think the way he describes Zovaal's actions makes sense. But the issue is that Blizzard fails to make what Tali explains here clear. WHERE DOES BLIZZARD SAYS ANY OF THIS? And *IF* it is what Blizzard intended us to understand, it still tells us that Zovaal is a pretty pathetic bad guy if he spent all this time just throwing every things he could get his hands on right to the metaphoric wall hoping one of them would stick. It's ALSO surprising nothing else seems to have made it as far as Sylvanas did. I'm surprised we've never heard of an actual champion of his prior to Sylvanas who managed to do anything remotely notable in the Shadowlands. Could've been fun to hear "oh yes, he made in attempt on Oribos before, but he failed." The truth is, people ARE NOT WRONG. They might be wrong. But until Blizzard clarifies this garbage, they're not wrong. And Tali is making click-bait titles just like Bellular. HA.

[@mactassio21]

Tali isn't really right because there is a fallacy here. The thing Tali is pointing out to explain why the jailer plan worked is the idea of "any unlikely event when repeated by an infinite amount of time is always likely to occur" , the problem here is , the jailer was not repeating an unlikely event or trying to make unlikely events happen, he set out a few soldiers and was waiting until an opportunity presented itself where he could set himself free ( remember he was imprisoned by the first ones). The jailer was not trying to make a lot of Argus or a lot of sylvannas, he didn't have a lot of different armies doing different stuff in different universes with unlimited amounts of titan souls. The unlikeliness that happened to set him free is not only still very unlikely but for it to happened a lot of characters had to be reconnected into being completely stupid ( voljin, sylvannas most of all, arthas, Thrall, Anduin, Azshara , the old gods ). I know he wants his theory to fit his reasoning here but also that's not what blizzard tried to imply in game at all after 20 years of bad writing and it honestly looks more like a fanfic of his than the actual lore.

[@valeclaw1697]

The way he describes his actions aren't substantiated by what is actually being said in game is my problem. Hes just saying his interpretation as a fact and talking down to you by saying you're wrong if you don't agree.

[@goblinounours]

@@valeclaw1697 I wholeheartedly agree with this. I don't like how Tali is always acting so GOD DAMN F@CKING SMUG about everything like he's the voice of reason and smarter than everyone else, which shows with ALL of his "it was a sh!tshow, obviously" segments where he shows Blizzard doing something that obviously wasn't well received and then puts it in perspective with the most EXTREMES of takes from the community, just to say "ha ha, look, players are dumb". Sounds like a form a whataboutism. Which is JUST what he did in this video. People think the whole thing about the Jailer makes no sense. So he uses ComicallyLane's shitpost as an example, knowingly using examples (like the Jailer having planned for the what Garrosh did on AU Draenor and everything), which is an extreme example that doesn't work, because it's a sh!tpost. At the end of the day, his explanation sort-of works. No way to prove it's THE explanation. Even if it is, it's still a freaking moronic explanation. And it's the same thing he did when there was, for example the controversy about Blizzard adding black-skinned Blood Elves. Tali basically told us _"you think they have no reason to exist in the Lore, and you're wrong, here's why : they got their skin complexion by being close to the Sunwell for centuries"._ Blizzard didn't clarify, but in Tali's mind, it's the only explanation that (kinda but not really) makes sense, so it's the actual explanation, and if you don't agree, you're wrong. And then he seems annoyed people like me think he's a Blizzard shill.

[@goblinounours]

@@mactassio21 It is an idiotic story anyway you cut it, really. STILL, I don't think anyone could've made this idea work. The idea of a newly invented bad guy, and having all the past Lore somehow retroffited into being part of his plan, knowing the Lore has already been retrofitted to work with other stuff several times. And it's going to happen again when we get to encounter the actual Void Lords, when Blizzard actually FINALLY give them all names and personalities. And you know there's a big chance they'll be just as boring as Nipple-Smurf over there. By the way, it's a thing I really hate with WoW, it's how they seem to do things step by step. Like, internally, I doubt they even solidified what the names of the Void Lords are yet. Not even sure they came up with concept-arts, personalities, motivations. But they should've. WE should already have heard all of their names since we've had encounters with Void-related beings since Vanilla, between the Old Gods and the Etherials. Mark my word, SOMEHOW, at one point, Blizzard will send us on what's left o Ka'resh (the broken world of the Etherials), and we'll have a big fight with the Void Lords there, it'll either be an expansion 'continent' or a patch zone. And when that'll happen, they'll dump a cr@p-ton of Ka'resh Lore that will feel like it comes from no-where (because it will) JUST LIKE it did in Shadowlands. I mean, Kyrians have been around WoW since Vanilla as Spirit Healers, and it took Blizzard more than 15 years to come up with their name. NEVER have they thought _"What if there was a quest-chain where a Spirit Healer tells us things about Bastion? What if there was a quest-chain where someone has a near-death-experience and gets to see Oribos and the Arbiter, which gives us the opportunity to tease that content years in advance to hype people up and butter them up about the coming Lore dump?"_

[@DISTurbedwaffle918]

I wouldn't say it wouldn't make him a BAD villain, it would just make him a cunning opportunist rather than an omniscient master planner. Rather than laying out vast, long-term plans, he simply lays out smaller scale plans to take advantage of critical opportunities, which is more in line with a good commander, as it shows an ability to react to changing conditions. Certainly, the Lich King thing was a more long term concept, as I feel that capturing the Runecarver and extracting the Domination Gear from him to sell as an idea to the Legion takes more time and effort than some of his other plans. Essentially, he planted a bunch of seeds wherever he could, and has just been reaping the fruit from those that mature.

[@ramboramb0]

While this explanation almost makes sense, i fail to see the huge amount of failed plans that had to happen in those millennias, there has to be some sort of trace in the ingame lore in order for this explanation to be taken seriously. That is obviously, without taking in consideration that a huge amount of failed plans would rise suspects from the other cosmic beings, but oh well.

[@LuckyMacchiato]

Well, fortunately for the Jailer, the other cosmic beings are literal idiots with blinders on so it's at least pretty much canon that they wouldn't even have noticed the Jailer literally walking in and out of the Maw, like those old cartoon gags where the character is stuck but removes themselves to get something for the character trying to help them out.

[@beezyonbass3906]

Yeah. This is the main objection I have to the hypothesis presented. Tali really just wants any excuse he can find to rationalize Blizzards bad plotting.

[@gustavrasslan8440]

Well, Arthas and Nerzhul were both failed plans, as Nerzhul himself says in the SoD raid. He says that he was a failure, that was usurped by another (Arthas), while in the cinematic trailer for the Shadowlands expansion Sylvanas calls Bolvar a usurper. Sylvanas was the solution to a failed plan with Arthas, who himself was a solution to a failed plan with Nerzhul. So when you say, "there has to be some sort of trace in the in-game lore", there definitely are more than just traces, which have been used in both the marketing, in-game cinematics, questing and in dialogue in raid fights (including the current raid).

[@ramboramb0]

@@gustavrasslan8440 in order to be a "trace" there has to be something linked to the jailer during those events, you can't decide that arthas and sylvanas were originally jailer's plans since during their stories there were no signs at all. (during her suicide sylvanas's makes no mention of anyone speaking to her besides the valkyries, and while alive arthas has had 0 hints or interactions with the jailer i believe) And obviously there are signs during the current expansion lol, the point is that they are retconning so hard and it makes so little sense that no one takes it seriously

[@NickYoung22]

Why didn’t the jailer post some undead on the moon? Surely undead on the moon is better than not having undead on the moon. That’s basically the logic being used here. If he did something, it’s because it’s better than not doing something. But all the things he didn’t do, weren’t needed for the plan to work. It’s all so convoluted in order to make sense. Plus, all the plans are connected. It’s not like plan A, Plan B if A fails, Plan C if B fails. It’s plan A all the way through. It’s all a follow up of a previous move which is the 5D chess aspect of it. If there were tons of plans that failed, we would have had some info about dreadlords on other worlds pulling strings that failed, or undead on other worlds etc. it all happened on Azeroth, and it all came together in the last 20 years despite the jailer having millions of years apparently. The LK was the key factor in everything, but he only showed up 20 years ago. Without him, the entire thing is bunk. Or maybe there have been 100 LK on other worlds no one ever talks about (that’s post hawk writing for the game)

[@Gebirges]

You missed the part where a random demon wounded the current warchief that has a deep connection to the Loa and Ardenweald where one of your allies sits (Muezhala) that corrupts said warchief to basically create a Lich King within one of the most powerful factions. Clearly planned that one, right? No that could actually have been their most current plan tbh

[@stormstrider1990]

It was revealed in Vol'jin's questline in BfA that he was weakened and distracted by evil spirits on the Broken Shore. Those spirits were most likely Mueh'zala's minions. Mueh'zala did everything in his power to make sure Vol'jin died, and the "Lich Queen" took his place as warchief.

[@michaelcrisler1]

It is great that you explained this because it certainly makes the most sense. However, none of this explanation is in game. In game, Zovaal's minions are chanting about how their master's great plan has come to fruition. In game, he is portrayed as a 5000 IQ mastermind. You had to spend 24 minutes explaining this to us because WoW didn't. That's the problem. In my opinion, this isn't worth your effort to explain WoW won't do it and they are actively working to portray this differently in the game. Your explanation doesn't make the lore better, instead it makes you a better writer than their team. Shadowlands had the opportunity to be the most interesting, thought provoking expansion for lore. What we got was a boring bad guy who just wants to be all powerful. How many times have we fought that same motive?

[@tnecniw]

Yeah… Unless it is explained in game, is this way that Tali explains it just headcanon. Which is annoying

[@baudrillardricoeur]

All that info is in-game. It just isn't presented all at once in a single discourse.

[@crazzluz1702]

He literally brought this up in the video. Said that the way Blizz portrayed Zovaal is bad and that he's a really boring and bland villain as a result, despite actually having a decent concept behind him. For some reason, you're writing the exact point of his entire video but framing it as a criticism.

[@MeTakingAStand]

You hit it spot on here: the problem is that for 99% of players to understand a character properly, someone had to spend 24 minutes setting the record straight. Instead of people uploading videos of why they LIKE something, people were largely uploading videos of why they DONT like it. Shadowlands would've turned out very differently if (ignoring the elephant in the room that is Blizzard's reputation) Blizzard chose to show us what happened to the Jailor from the onset. If we were told the history of who the Jailer was the minute we got to Oribos, then our understanding of how truly opportunistic he had to be to break out of the Maw would've changed. Instead, we had to play through the entirety of the expansion to learn just HOW everything came to be--even though pretty much all of the information would've made sense to anyone living in Oribos. The only plot twist to us at that point would've been that it was Argus' soul that broke the Arbiter. We could've learned that when we defeated Denathrius in the first raid, then the build up to the second raid would've made MUCH more sense in the context of who Zovaal really is--it would've made our efforts to stop him seem MUCH more desperate, and it would've made our failure to stop him seem MUCH more impactful. What we were presented was a villain who seemed all knowing & all powerful, and that kind of took the stakes away from everything because fighting Denathrius was a distraction, really; and we kind of knew we were going to lose in Oribos. It's just such a shame to me that Blizzard had the absolute most potential to create a cool NEW story & world with an afterlife concept, but they wasted it on poorly explained character development instead of creating an engaging story.

[@Vinzenzx]

@@tnecniw It's the other way around... Tali is just clearing stuff for the people that don't understand, but the game never said or showed it was a 17D chess plan and that is the Headcanon that people is having.

[@Drakhesh]

That... actually makes his character even worse. The "5000 IQ master plan spanning from the dawn of creation" was, to say the least, far fetched but it attributed Zovaal with - if ludicrous - amount of competence. But in Taliesin version? He's just a big bald guy who got screwed over and then eventually got lucky enough for things going his way. Which makes him as imposing and fearsome as an elderly person, glued to a slots machine at a casino, dropping quarter after quarter with blank stare. Congratulations, the 'greatest threat in history of Warcraft' got there by the power of dumb luck. That's just... sad.

[@naqahdah]

I've never seen so much effort go in to justifying something that, very obviously, got added as an afterthought down the line. It's a random retcon to fit the current garbage in with past events that was conjured up, in all likelihood, about 6 months before shadowlands launched. It's probably better to just recognize it as such rather than trying to assign value to the obvious.

[@Serothil_and_stuff]

Uhm Taliesin... Your explanation about the jailer betting on billions of different horses until one actually wins the race, was better than any lore after Legion, except for maybe N'Zoth fish edition. I was literally more invested than in anything else shadowlands related. Awesome Job!

[@Zanzibawrr]

or it would be, had the jailer not been depicted as a "deceptively cunning" mastermind during the expansion. tali here is just doing mental gymnastics to get away from the fact that blizzard intended the jailer to be a "7d chess" manipulator.

[@Blaktimus]

This might be the best little bit they've done in a long time man i love this animated story about 5head jailer brain plan

[@efwhyai]

Almost convinced that T&E are Blizz associates who make videos to elaborate everything that goes on :'). The quality is so good and enjoyable, Thanks for that!

[@robertgreen6433]

THat big gaping maw in the Jailer's chest is just a metaphor for the plot hole that is Shadowlands

[@guiga6604]

I'm disheartened by the current lore. If the writing team threw away two amazing villains that Aszhara and N'zoth were and can't even pull of a new one, making the jailer the most boring stupid villain this game ever had, how can tell more complex and interesting stories? I moved away from the game in Shadowlands and i don't think I'll ever go back. I'm totally uninterested.

[@yangabrielreisoliveira8306]

great, go play final fantasy.

[@guiga6604]

@@yangabrielreisoliveira8306 É o que eu mais quero, mas o jogo não tá a venda e free trial não consegue entrar em filas maiores

[@yangabrielreisoliveira8306]

@@guiga6604 que pena 🤷‍♂️

[@jethrodark2372]

Blizz frigged themselves, i dont think WoW will die but i do believe they lost a huge chunk of their playerbase and they wont comeback.

[@seawolf888]

what they did with nzoth and aszhara after all those years of build up..... i just cant.....

[@Kolvarg]

The thing is - no one believes that the Jailer predicted all these events. That's exactly the point. They can literally create a new villain every expansion and just say "oh yeah, they actually have been working behind the scenes for thousands of years, and therefore it's believable as anything that is attempted enough times becomes inevitable". It's cheap, it's tasteless, and honestly yes it does devalue and stain the old lore. The story behind the LK was complete, it didn't need another layer. To not only add that new layer but act as if it was planned all along is disrespectful both the source material and the fans' intelligence, in my honest opinion.

[@Kolvarg]

And that is of course, giving credit to the notion that "anything that is attempted enough times becomes inevitable". But even that requires a lot of suspension of disbelief. Sure, if you flip a coin enough times you will eventually get an unlikely string of results. Because the truth is each possible string of results is just as likely as any other. But no matter how many times you flip it or how many years you wait, the coin isn't going to turn into a dove. And while "the system" works well for a magic show which then goes on to explain how it happened, it doesn't really work for a narrative that does not really show the supposedly thousands or millions of failed attempts that lead to that success, and how the Jailer avoided any negative consequences from those failed attempts. All in all, the problem is honestly that there even needs to be an explanation. He didn't need to be all this. It didn't need to be anything more complex than "the arbiter broke, which gave the Jailer his chance". By trying to be clever and adding him beneath all these layers of past lore they just dig a bunch of holes that they cannot possibly fill, certainly not in any satisfying way. Hell, Shadowlands didn't even need Zovaal. With how messed up the afterlife is, we, the players, should be the ones trying to fix/remake it. It could have even continued BfA's choice system and allowed players to side with or against the covenants.

[@sticksbender4057]

3:27 the part where the entire video is summarized in one image. Yes, he is just making this up as he goes along.

[@Juls25]

the production, the music, the story, the voice. Tali this is the greatest opening sequence ever created kudos

[@Xaldarus]

See I'm calling BS for a variety of reasons. For one, if the Jailer planned anything, it all had to be done before his imprisonment unless everything is Denathrius's idea and he's tossing paperplanes into the Maw to keep the Jailer up to speed. Then, the whole Argus thing is like checkmating your opponent then continuing to play? If they needed Argus dead, they could have DONE IT THEMSELVES. And, if Argus has been the battery to keep the Burning Legion alive, wouldn't he be a Titan of ........ LIFE?! Infusing him with Death Magic would've probably negated any battery effect of rezzing the Legion that he had. Total McGuffin. I'll give you the idea that changing where he goes when he dies can make sense, but the fact that Azeroth was completely unnecessary remains. Like literally, anything involving Azeroth was irrelevant to accomplish the goal when you can just kill Argus yourself at any time you want. I don't know, ultimately you are possibly right with how the game has presented it, but it clearly doesn't make sense and they are making it up on the fly.

[@ThanesTito]

just a quick thing about Argus and reviving the Burning Legion: demons are powered by Fel/Chaos, not by Life, and unlike Life, Fel is not antagonistic to Death, so you can pump that baby titan full of Fel (which is antagonistic to Arcane, which was the titans original power source, but as seen from Sargeras, that can be corrupted) and full of Death, because, like Tali said, why not? it's better than having to find *another* titan soul to pump full of Death Magic to see what happens - and the fact that the Heroes of Azeroth ended up killing Argus and because of the boat loads of death magic it went to the Shadowlands and breaking the Arbiter is just a happy coincidence, which you didn't *plan* for, but hey, if it helps you, it helps you

[@Xaldarus]

@@ThanesTito That sounds like good logic, thanks for the correction. I suppose I didn't think about it enough at the time, but I suppose the Burning Legion wouldn't want to kill Argus would they, so the Dreadlords would have to antagonize someone else to and that's where we come in. Still, convoluted af. And this is the community piecing it together for them, I'm sure Bliz hasn't connected all of this internally in an official sense yet.

[@jethrodark2372]

I think Denathrius is behind it all, he created master manipulators so he is probly even better than them at manipulation. Also Argus being a Death Titan makes sense, if u have true power of death u can stop people from dying and or bring them back. Think of it like the Grim Reaper if he dont reap u, u wont die. Having power over death u can choose who lives and who dies infact if ur the god of death u can make anyone immortal. The real power of life come from creating new life meaning plantlife, people ect. Death cannot create new life/souls, only life can do that, but Death controlls and can stop people from dying kinda like Lich King could resurrect people and make them undead. Argus wasnt making new demons just resurrecting demons we allready killed. But u are right that life can still bring u back too if u havent been dead to long(aka Argus fight somethong like that happens), the life Titan on that fight(i forget her name) brings us back. She says the spark of life still lingers so she brings us back, also that implies if we were dead to long she would not be able to bring us back.

[@doctorowl2004]

It's like if I take all Boeing single parts and start shaking them - after some billion circles I'll get my Boeing? No. It doesn't work like that!

[@zombiesatethevideostar1695]

It's almost as if another MMO has done similar story concepts but in a very different manner, showing off the true patience of deathless beings and their machinations over time, and followed it up with good writing to go along with it. When you compare the writing of the two, WoW's has not been good in a while.

[@TheGerrok]

The problem isn't the plot, it's the storytelling.

[@hirumaredx]

This video was great. The concept of a person with nothing but time on his side and the dreadlords to help him use that time to free himself eventually, sounds good in theory, but they failed to give the Jailer a personality of any kind to make it seem good in any context. Plus, since his whole m.o. is having his hand in all kinds of different plans, its easy to get the misconception that hes a 5d chess master, when really hes not. Most of his success is thanks to the dreadlords carrying his plans so hard on their crafty backs, with the jailer was just writing their "paychecks" with copious amounts of death magic and connections. Also those animations were great, Flyingbuttress is an A+ editor. Highly recommend!

[@PieOfTetris]

In my head canon the jailer didn't plan anything. He just saw an opportunity and took it. Story feels less cheap that way imo

[@ransac16]

Basically, yeah. This blatant moron ain't planning shit. He just has goals and some good luck.

[@kimaclaret]

This was my assumption as well. Unfortunately doesn't make him any more intriguing a villain to me 😅

[@tholos2758]

But you don’t understand! It’s like Uther said, the Jailer is really cunning guys!

[@Zanzibawrr]

which is the same head canon as taliesin's

[@MagicScientist]

I agree, if Blizz had presented Zovaal this way, it would have been much better. But they didn't, and here we are. I do think it would be funny for the plot point of the game to be that the villain gets infinite tries to win, *just like we the players do*

[@MaxC.94]

holy fucking shit that sequence at the start with the jailer's plan in a machinima was beyond brilliant, like literally the most well done thing i've ever seen you do and that's seriously saying something. something about it was just...actually perfectly done. you captured so many tropes masterfully, well done af

[@Syenna88]

Just wait until we discover that the Jailer was serving someone all along in a few expansions and HE is the true big bad xD

[@CazaliEiben]

What if the Jailer somehow got his hands on a few of the many possibilities that the void lords see and worked towards them? Maybe this weirdly and impossible to predicts timeline was one the possibilities the void lords saw. We know the jailer got some spies in the void, so that wouldn't impossible.

[@Red1Green2Blue3]

You've created in a single sentence a more compelling plot point than anything presented in the entire SLs expansion.

[@CazaliEiben]

@@Red1Green2Blue3 I don't think that's all that hard to do.

[@Phildickle]

The problem is that we are fighting a Zovall that “has never known defeat” and we can’t have the narrative that Azeroth is both the most important thing in all of creation and also just some planet that isn’t a big deal and just a 1 in 10,000 “let’s see what happens.” I would agree that the premise that everything was planned and that the jailer didn’t just have ample time but also the ability to take advantage of opportunities as they became more relevant to an overall goal is more sound than gigabrain. But since Zovall has never known defeat it does just shoehorn him into this bigger tactician than he really should be for such a 2 dimensional nothing bad guy.

[@TheImpolitelad]

"Has never known defeat" Except... the one time... he was defeated... and became the Jailer....

[@Phildickle]

@@TheImpolitelad I think the implication is that too was part of his plan, otherwise he wouldn’t have been able to get the key to Zerith Mortis, so even in defeat he is victorious or some nonsense. It would even be plausible as a good story element if it wasn’t so shoddily told. It really feels like they had all the elements to make a good quality villain but undertold some elements and then just reinforced that he was behind everything to try to make up for it. A Zovaal with an actual purpose and motivation could have been great, just saying he was involved in all this stuff to meet an end without any real motivation is the biggest failing as a character

[@tengunomori]

I feel like your description of how the jailer is just waiting for things to "fall into place" and making it up as he goes along, is basically how Blizzard has written this expac's story. Head writer: OK we need a new story for this expac's drama fest... who's got something, throw it at me. Person B: Finally reveal why these Lovecraftian monstrosities do what they do? Head writer: No, we need to milk that teat longer, so we can keep throwing them in as mysterious raid bosses that are somehow involved. Person A: Well... they've fought back demons, stopped the undead scourge, battled the 4 elements, talked about their feelings in Pandaria, went back to the future with Gul'Dan, demons again, Grand slap-fight between factions... Person B: Oh they killed a titan too... huge sword-thing now in Azeroth we don't know what to do with other than "heal the world" in between grand slap-fight... but it looks cool and got people to go back to that zone (for a month)! Person A: Ah yeah... all that did happen... how can we tie it all together? Person C: Shenanigans in the afterlife to hand-wave explain why the the player characters are basically immortal? Also Sylvanas is somehow involved after her trying to create bio-warfare and testing it on the worgens? Head writer: Yeah... we can make that work. Now, lets take away their mounts and then make them work to get them back, so they can feel a false sense of accomplishment through grinding.

[@driskulls7834]

The biggest problem with T and E's evalutation here is that none of this lines up with the motivations of the characters the jailer has somewhat controlled for the past however many years. Example, Why would Zovaal who is in control of the Nathrezim who are then influencing Sargeras decision making in his conquest of the universe want Sargeras to POTENTIALLY destroy azeroth. Using the logic brought up in the argument of Zovaal "throwing multiple stuff at multiple walls to see what sticks and work around that" Zovaal now on azeroth at the point in the Legion expansion has Sylvanas in this instance "stuck to the wall" as a possible way to plan around his escape of the maw. WHY WOULD ZOVAAL WHO IS ESSENTIALLY CONTROLLING THE LEGION WANT THE LEGION TO DESTROY AZEROTH KILLING SYLVANAS AND UNDOING 1 OF POSSIBLE PLANS HE SET IN MOTION TO POSSIBLY HAVE HIM ESCAPE. IF YOU THROW SOMETHING AT THE WALL AND IT STICKS AND YOU WANT IT TO STICK, WHY WOULD YOU THEN TRY TO REMOVE WHAT YOU HAVE STICKING AT THE WALL. IT MAKES ZERO SENSE. Hence why this argument basically is invalid and just brings us right back to square one of the idea that Zovaal HAD TO HAVE planned all this out at the start (which is completely unbelievable) because why would anyone in Zovaals situation if he is meant to be as "deceptively cunning" as we are made to believe actively try to undo plans he had been trying to set in motion. On a sidenote this is in no way hate towards T and E I do admire how they are trying their best here to make something out of nothing but I think we just have to face reality here(haha Zovaal trying to undo reality get it? ok sorry.)and just accept The main story writers at Blizzard really, REALLY dropped the ball on this one and bit off WAAAAAAAY more then they could chew. Thanks for coming to my TED talk have a good one whoever reads this.

[@TheSilverwing999]

You are absolutely right in this analysis. The only thing I'll say is that I don't think the game does itself a service with how they portray the Jailer. It does feel a bit like they want you to think he is this huge mastermind, when when you look into it he really isn't. He just had loads of plans in the works and some of them happened to come to fruition. I can see why some people might think he had it all planned years ago with how the game tells that part of the story.

[@pridefulobserver3807]

I was told here is were the shills come to praise the employee murdering and abuser Activision/Blizzard

[@Mr_Spaghetti]

Fantastic framing, I really like how you cut back to the guy’s photograph thread thingies with the heist music in the background while explaining the Jailer’s POV. I don’t agree with every point, but dang you did an excellent job in selling it. You two are the best, keep up the great work

[@TheDeadGunslinger]

It actually connects back to your Emet Selch analogy. Emet strait up says, in Shadowbringers, "Even if I help you, and you completely undo everything I've done here, I can just start over."

[@bobbythefish4836]

My take was that what the writers wanted is actually just the Hades/Devil/Death archetype. Which is that there is a being who was previously of high status or known as a "fallen angel" and now rules death/underworld, and for whatever purpose they simply spread vice and iniquity in the hearts and minds of all beings throughout the world. They are known as the author of all evil. In stories like this, the Hades character is credited as behind every evil act, but not because he was personally involved in the finer details. This kind of Hades works more like a gardener, sowing seeds of hatred, greed, etc, over the world. Whatever particular things sprout and grow from it don't matter. Any evil produced is for his benefit. All vice and iniquity serves Death in the end. And whenever someone exhibits a vice, they claim "the devil made me do it." The difference is that a Hades doesn't typically have agents. Rather the agents of death are simply those in which the vice is in full bloom. Ones who seek only to serve themselves, and thus unwittingly become the servants of death.

[@Xelzeno]

While this is an interesting take on the Jailer and his plans it leaves the big problems of where is all his failures? If he has literally taken every coin flip he could in the hopes of getting those 10 heads in a row there should be failures everywhere! But instead he hasn't thrown everything on the wall and some stuck, he has thrown the coin and everytime he threw it ended up heads and in the end all of those heads created the perfect circumstance for exactly what he needed with what seemed no real failures on the way.

[@MaxC.94]

That's not really true, though. The problem of not seeing the rest of the spaghetti that was thrown at the wall exists in Blizzard's poor storytelling mixed with our inherent perspective as beings on Azeroth. We can't know all of the other plans that failed because we never saw them. For us to have that knowledge would be meta-gaming on a level that would render doing anything in WoW literally more pointless than it already is, since there'd be no aspect of discovery or wonder about the unknown...because it'd all be known, in a way that's utterly unrealistic. That'd be like saying we should have known that X star in Y galaxy went through a supernova because it affected some other galaxy...what's our business in knowing that? What purpose does knowing that serve? Ultimately, nothing, since what we deal with in our lives is only what is in our immediate realm of knowledge.

[@moscanaveia]

People literally bashed Arthas' brains in that one time. "Where are his failures?" In the fucking expansion everyone says was the best?

[@Scottoest]

@@moscanaveia Except the game then goes on to tell the player that the Jailer has "never lost"!

[@moscanaveia]

@@Scottoest Ehrmahgehrd! This inconsistency is soooo serious. Where is it? On the Adventurer's Journal?

[@tommysjoberg1268]

@@Scottoest They say he has never lost ? Hmm wonder how he came to be in Superhell then?

[@equalmc276]

No one needs to call you a shill for explaining blizzards story. The fact you acknowledge that it needs to be done is already damning enough for blizz.

[@theodorsik]

The “throwing spaghetti at a wall and see what sticks” is jist like Bene gesserit in Dune. Just as Jessica is toled “Our plans are made for millenia. We have other prospects should he fail.”

[@Last4xis]

I still feel the Jailer is a weak sauce villain, bit the way you contextualize it, it makes a bit more sense, and the fact that they haven't presented the story as such with the resources they have makes it all the more bitter.

[@Last4xis]

@Rose's Zen Garden The fact that they have major lore developments take place in the book instead of the game ALWAYS baffled me.

[@bodhirana7405]

Flying Buttress is amazing. I'm so glad to see him involved with so many content creators. People really need to watch his stuff and give him LOTS of love.

[@MrMullerMachine]

So with the Slyvanas book we leaned that the OP was pretty much right and taliesin's defense of the story was pretty much wrong.

[@MarkTheMadMan]

11:38 reminds me of the night elf jumping scenario. See if you can get 10 consecutive somersault jumps in a row. i think the world record is 17

[@Riokaii]

This video would be great, if any of those failed plans and millenia of attempts were actually yaknow, mentioned, at all, even slightly. but they arent. blizzard absolutely 100% wanted the players to believe he was behind everything, the players just didnt buy it, because obviously they didn't do anything to sell it to them.

[@moscanaveia]

The Jailer's strongest asset was the Lich King, and all three who farted on the Frozen Throne were failures to Zovaal's plan: One betrayed him. One got himself killed. And the last one never gave up his sanity and kept the Scourge and Nipples at bay

[@moscanaveia]

Also, the very fact people are comaining about 8D chess communicates quite clearly the "master plan all along" is the perspective players assume is the one that governs the Jailer

[@Wyrmshield]

It's that line near the end that really speaks volumes about how awesome the potential for the Jailor is: "He can fail as many times as he likes, he only needs to win once."

[@TryckSpot]

This explanation has a major flaw. You're assuming Zovaal was throwing out so much shit for so very long that EVENTUALLY a string of shit stuck to the wall, forming a sequence of events that lead us to where we are today. That, in a void, IS inevitable because he's immortal and immortals have the advantage of infinity - wherein anything and everything is possible. The flaw, however, is that he was ALLOWED to do ALL that shit throwing for ALL that time without ANYONE stopping him. So either he DID meticulously plan everything out with razor sharp precision that nobody noticed he was doing it, or literally every other entity with awareness of him is stupid beyond measure for not see'ing and doing anything about it.

[@mechogecko3931]

Glad you somewhat acknowledged it, but yeah they needed to SHOW (maybe) how he's tried all these plans. Like what if we rolled up on him in the shadowlands, and never saw him until the end of the intro quest where he could have basically said "wait how do you really expect to win, I've done this same song and dance SINCE BEFORE YOUR TITANS EXISTED! (To which he could open up a sort of massive multiple portal thing showing us all his past attempt)." We'd look upon the hundreds of hundreds of failed attempts, become unconvinced/resolved that we'd win but maybe then get wicked away before we were easily dominated due to our then heavily demoralized wills.

[@Pokdemon]

I feel like there is 2 problems with the idea that "death" is inevitable. 1. Didn't the jailer say that the design is flawed? meaning he is going to rewrite the cycle of life/death and so no longer care about death. 2. If death is inevitable then why do we defeat and possibly kill the jailer in the next raid? You can't stop or prevent something that is for sure going to happen.

[@rksworld4405]

death is invevitable for not only us but the jailer too. his happend first we will follow

[@llgxz]

This all does make perfect sense. The biggest problem with how it's portrayed in the game is that the Jailer is framed as a master planner instead of simply as an opportunist. The dialogue in 9.2 continues to drill in that he planned everything out too, which certainly doesn't help. It's funny how "the big recontextualizer" himself needs to be recontextualized to make any sense.

[@FroJSimpson]

The best analogy I can think of for how poorly implemented the Jailer’s presentation is when you get the right answer on a math test, but still lost points on the grade for not properly showing your work.

[@jordanread5829]

I have a few problems. The first is with the Lich King. In Shadowlands we learn that Zovaal can not only see through the Helm of Domination, but he could whisper to those who wielded it. Unfortunately for him, Ner'zhul, Arthas and Bolvar all had strong enough willpowers to resist him. If he could see through the Helm, then surely he must of known that Ner'zhul was not only planning to betray the Legion but also ignore whatever Zovaal wanted him to do. His own agents (the Dreadlords) were watching Ner'zhul 24/7 ensuring that he "stuck to the plan". However by the time the Dreadlords noticed that Ner'zhul was playing them (i.e. Mal'ganis "tripping down some icy stairs"), Archimonde was getting impatient. But surely Zovaal would've told Denathrius and thus the Dreadlords to abort the mission before it really started. Zovaal even paints Ner'zhul getting usurped by Arthas as a failure. Clearly the bald man did not want Arthas to be the Lich King. So why allow an already doomed plan to continue? The second I have is with Argus and his death being the catalyst for robot Arbiter blue screening. If Argus dying was the key to disable the Arbiter and make all souls entering the Shadowlands flow to the maw without passing Go, without collecting 200 Anima then it was a really good thing that Velen decided to grow a pair and chase after Kil'jaeden at the end of Tomb of Sargeras. The issue I have with this one is that the "corruption" of Argus to ensure that he would go to the Shadowlands was done by the Dreadlords. 1. How did the Dreadlords get access to the World Soul Chamber where only those chosen by Sargeras could enter? They even needed a special key to bypass the Burning Thrones defenses according to the second ABT skip quest. 2. How long ago did this take place? 3. What would've been the plan to ensure Argus dying if Velen did not chase Kil'jaeden through the closing portal at the end of Tomb of Sargeras? 4. What would've happened if Eonar didn't nor couldn't pull a Deus Ex Machina and revive us via that magic tree? Argus killed us in one blow and was about to end everything. I don't think Sargeras ordered the Dreadlords to torture Argus to become a battery and an anchor point for demonic souls to make their regeneration quicker. Sargeras most likely had his Coven do this. One would think that the Jailer would've ensured that Argus dying was going to happen regardless of any if's or buts. Much like how Savathun kept a close eye on her plan to curse the Dreaming City in Destiny 2. That scheme was crucial to her goals of removing her worm with the aid of Mara Sov. As she can use the curse as a bargaining chip. She did this by wishing for Riven to curse the city on her (Riven's) death. Ahamaka are duty bound to fulfill any wish asked of them. Although they can manipulate the wording of the wish to their advantage. Savathun also had one of her children keep an eye on Riven from Mara's throne world. Which was conquered by the brother Oryx back in the Taken King expansion. After Oryx's death, it was left unattended. Oryx also took Riven as a result. However Riven was smart enough to trick Oryx to make it a wish. When Oryx died, she regained some of her free will. She believed she could trick Savathun but was stunned that Savathun's wish was just a part of her plan. Riven was eager to see how it could end. Even if it involved her dying to do so. The story of how Riven succeeded in her mission is shown in the expansion Forsaken. At the same time, some of the schemes the Witch Queen had either succeeded but the outcome was not what she desired (like helping her sister Xivu Arath conquer the Cabal homeworld hoping doing so would take the bounty off her head following what happened in Season of Arrivals) or her schemes do not succeed at all. She gave Calus, Emperor of the Cabal the Crown of Sorrow. An artifact that anyone who wears it will be a thrall to Savathun. Calus instead ordered one of his servants to equip the Crown. The bottom line is that Savathun ensured that her main scheme, which was the taken curse happened. Because it was important to her plans. She regrets making the deal she made with the Worm Gods when she was just a kid. We don't know when she changed her mind about being a slave to the Darkness. But she did have pieces at her disposal when she did. Such as the Taken Vex Axis Mind Quiria. Whom learned how to take from studying Oryx well after the Taken Kings death. Quiria was the one who designed the taken curse. And in the Witch Queen expansion it all paid off. Savathun is now free from her worm (due to Season of the Lost) and has now taken the power of the Light for herself. Making herself and her Hive Brood lightbearers. With ghosts and everything. It just feels silly that Zovaal would put his eggs into one basket when it came to using Argus as the signal flare to move into the final stage of his plans. Given that it might not have happened at all. And it happened without him ensuring that it happened.

[@Bioblom]

Simply awesome episode... the musical theme of the entire planning thing was fantastic and fun! Thanks for that. You always seem to be able to view these things from both sides, which is just great.

[@Snowmanse]

I love that this video exists, now that Blizzard has doubled down on the jailer actually having a 5000 iq plan, and everything being a deliberate step by step plan and not a series of random events.

[@slytherben]

I secretly love Zoval and Shadowlands... if Zoval had won, and he remade reality, and we were questing in some new universe right now... people would've viewed him as one of the greatest characters ever. I really wanted Zoval to win

[@TinyPlaysGames]

Good theorycrafting, but the narrative ingame is that he was planning it all along. The reason is because Danuser and the writers team can't write compelling characters and have to resort to attaching any new characters to previously enjoyed content in an attempt to buy off the audience. This is due to the fact they can't properly articulate actually deep and meaningful characters due to the restrictions of their own creative ability and how limited story telling is within the game (ergo Blizzard selling books between expansions in order to fill in massive gaps within their plot). It is a combination of laziness, lack of ability, and arrogance built up over many years that led to Zovaal - and it's probably one of the final nails in WoW's coffin. (Not dissing you btw, really well constructed video and great editing. Going to stick around for future content!)

[@TaliesinEvitel]

Thanks for the comment! I think there's pretty compelling evidence (the three points in the vid) that its not a master plan, but I value your opinion :)

[@marksr1907]

So the defense of the improbability of the infinitely improbable outcome is there are infinite dimensions of possibilities in the universe (metaverse anyone?) therefore people are incorrect at thinking it is improbable? TLDR; Your player and what you do means nothing. I don't think this makes the sense you think it does Tali. The most copium I've seen in a single post ever.

[@joeld9344]

Great video with an interesting perspective on the story! Couldn't agree more with the closing remarks about it still being a Blizzard issue to not be portraying the story in a way in which this sort of conclusion is more obvious than the other less cool ones.

[@nellygubina]

I thought the "it's better than *not* having X" bit was hilarious and I agree 100% about the concept of having unlimited time and how it connects to death being a very cool and scary basis for a villain! It makes me think of Sauron and how scary the idea of an ultimate evil desperately trying to claw its way back into reality is. Would've been great if they had focused on that instead of trying to make the story seem deep by connecting the Jailer to every significant event in the past. Also, ofc, the Jailer would need to be interesting and have interesting motivations and beliefs. But that inevitability concept on its own is very cool indeed. 👍

[@knifetoucher]

I think people thinking the way they do is because Blizzard does a very bad job at story telling within the game. They omit a bunch of important info in game because they rely on people to read the books to take all the convoluted story in. If you want to read the book, fine, but it shouldn't be required that we do 'homework' in order to enjoy the story in a game.

[@simonkirsch5924]

Seriously, thank you for this explanation. If only blizz‘s storytelling was able to transport that narrative… maybe have Zoval talking about his luck instead of his inevitable torment stuff…

[@thebrapman]

"hahahahahaha" - Steve Danuser.

[@urbannus]

I'd think about this from the point of view of Death: "I am inevitable, because no matter how long it takes, I'll have everything."

[@keithb6344]

If a person enters a poker tournament with the best players in the world and they draw a perfect hand, when they win, do they tell people they got lucky or do they say they beat the best players in the world. Both are correct. I am not sure an egomaniac bent on "fixing" reality would ever admit he just finally got lucky. I think Blizz has to tell that a different way and probably won't.

[@thor.mukbang]

@@urbannus it's impossible to tell a good story about the afterlife, because afterlife makes no sense. If there's life after life, then life has no value, and Death ceases to exist

[@Luuniixo]

The one sentence that destroyed wow lore for me forever to this day still: "The Twisting Nether transcends all realities". Eventhough you made bfa/sl lore bareable for me with this video i feel like we can never go back from that...

[@Narlaw1199]

22:00 And here is where the problem lies... Another example, is about Pelagos. The reveal of his destiny seemingly made no sense, but then you remember it's actually coherent with his arc... Arc being seen as a C plot that only a 1/4 of the player base got to see.

[@ribigurumu]

That was kind of cool, first time ever honestly where Jailer didn't look absolutely non sensical to me.

[@uniqueflowsnake]

N'Zoth was absolutely wasted. I still lament the fact we got SL instead of having N'Zoth be a big baddy and a looming threat in an expansion after BFA. Instead we went into shadowlands and dabled a bit more with the cosmic powers and ruined loads of lore in the process. Some things are better left as a mystery to be speculated about. WC universe would be better in my mind without a shadowlands.

[@Hi-fd4cw]

I think it’s okay for us to visit Shadowlands BUT I don’t think we went at the right time. Jumping from a grounded faction war to literally shattering the barrier between life and death is such a drastic leap. I would’ve been fine with it as long as the writing properly justified it, but it just wasn’t the right time to go when we did.

[@andrewrenshaw2741]

@@Hi-fd4cw there should have been an entire Northrend expansion where we found out more about Sylvanas' motives for doing what she did, chasing her all around the continent while also repairing the ties between the Horde and Alliance. Hints of Yogg Saron returning, etc. That way when Sylvanas goes to fight Bolvar it's so much more meaningful

[@stormstrider1990]

They should have just ditched the faction war and made BfA all about Azshara. They could still have worked in Zandalar and Kul Tiras as leveling content, and given the factions other reasons to go there. Then have us kill Azshara in the final patch, only for us to release N'zoth, leading to the following expansion. That expansion would have given N'zoth and Ny'alotha the love they deserved.

[@RoboBongoCuckooCop]

I disagree. the other old gods were dealt with in their own expansions, hell they weren't even the final boss of their respective expansions. why should N'Zoth get special treatment?

[@uniqueflowsnake]

@@Hi-fd4cw I would have be fine with going in later too.

[@Nemes1sXx]

If the Jailer had Dread Lord spies throughout the Legion, who infiltrated countless countless worlds, think about how many times he tried to do exactly what he tried on Azeroth. He must have failed SO many times.

[@Caiphex]

@Explain the fun away I agree with you but I think that is Riley's point. With the literal thousands of worlds the legion has burned we have no way of knowing how many other possible world souls they've destroyed along the way. Who knows what they attempted to do with any of those, but then it didn't work out, and so they just burned it all to the ground like normal. A burning legion has got to burn some legions.

[@Finny_.]

@Explain the fun away Hmmm I think the light is or was trying to do the same just "not corrupting" but chaining worlds to the light just as Alleria saw in "A Thousand years of war". What Yrel is doing in Draenor is an example on how the light works, they do terrible things in the name of the light forcing people to follow them or be killed

[@IISlymeII]

Anyone that uses the phrase "Pitiful mortal" is not capable of playing 5D chess anyways.

[@Nekrotix12]

This kinda makes me wish we had a more chaotic jailer. If his whole strategy was just "Throw shit against a wall and see what sticks", that should be his entire character. Have him make wild decisions out of nowhere, to be an unpredictable force of mayhem and destruction, just a crazy lunatic who's plan is literally being made up as he goes along. That way, it'd make sense why his plan feels so disjointed and has no real end goal, because it doesn't. It isn't structured at all, because he's just seeing how far he can go. The reason that it felt like he had planned all this to happen was his stoic demeanor, as though he were confident that this plan specifically was going to work, rather than this being the first time he's reached this far. If he had a more eccentric and wild personality, akin to something like Pennywise or the Joker or another clown-themed character (because it'd be fitting), he might actually be a cool and fun villain to have around.

[@Final7even]

The mental gymnastics and time needed to poorly attempt to handwave and justify this sad, SAD storyline is astounding. What a WASTE of time and effort.

[@Nelogenazea]

4 words about the comparsion with Mr Brown and the Jailor: People. are not! coins! Yes, you can mathematically determine how many people you need to have at least one person win 6 times in a row betting on horses and eventually you will get 10 heads in a row when flipping a coing. But people (or characters, in this case) aren't binary, they don't always have two decisions available to them. To take from this harebrained comparison that the Jailer just needed to wait is as asinine as the following scenario: Imagine you're an immortal being, locked in prison. Your one and only plan of escape is to wait for the warden to bring you food but accidentally slip and his key just so happens to fly directly into the lock of your cell. Sure, eventually this might happen, but if that is your only plan, it doesn't make you a very cunning villain, it makes you lazy and, should it ever succeed, unbeliveably lucky. Not a very interesting trait for a villain to have.

[@eko12]

The problem with Blizzard in relation on how things are done with ffxiv is that on one hand blizzard wants to sell books, comics and other merchandise by giving only a small part of the actually story of the game and on the other hand square enix gives you the entire story in the game to experience it if you are one of those ppl who actually enjoy reading and don't skip everything. I would not think that anything could redeem my perspective for Shadowland's story but the most enthusiastic guy for WoW Taliesin did, omg i am impressed with the skill of this guy and his overall enthusiasm through the years !

[@cephas.i]

One of the coolest villains WoW could ever have, would be a down to earth, Azeroth based, psychotic, Joker like goblin, unpredictably plotting between factions, turning heroes against each other. He would convince us to follow him, always giving a sense of discomfort, but he would always give us proof that he's right, and everything he would do, would make sense to us, so we would keep helping him. On the first patch, we take over major cities for him and help him build an army. On the second patch we would slowly realise that he is pretty much a bad guy and there's an underground resistance that tries to stop him. We join the resistance, but at this point we are pretty much destoryed emotinally, since we killed many of the true heroes of azeroth for him, many who we considered friends before. On the third patch, we do manage to kill him, but the whole Azeroth remains a chaos, and we can no longer be considered heroes. This could even lead to some form of factionless WoW or a new form of factions. Maybe a group of new, "true" heroes and a group of old renegades, outlaws, who belong nowhere and are considered savage murderers by the new world. You could chose to belong to the ones who hunt or the ones who get hunted. Would be a much more interesting and smart way to embody this two-faction conflict, than the old fashioned, purely hate based alliance-horde war. The whole point of the expansion and the villain itself would be to destory this hero centric idea of WoW. This would be the most player centered expansion, since the villain would not try to destroy the planet or the universe or whaterver. His whole goal would be to destory the idea of heroes. Us. The entire expansion would take place in Azeroth, fighting over old areas. Taking over major and minor cities, settlements. Old areas could be slightly reworked. For example once we join the resistance, we could use tunnels or caves under SW/OG, to travel around and conduct our businesses. Could this idea be expanded and written properly so that it could be and insanely enjoyable and engaging expansions? Yes. Does Blizzard possess the skills to do it? Not sure. Not anyomre.

[@luth7050]

this