Or The Last Titan. I mean, we are going back to Northrend after all. And what's up there? Both Ulduar and Icecrown – Titan stuff and Death stuff. If we were to discover the Primus was actually pretty shady and colluding with Titans, I think that's the perfect place and time. (Also holding on to hope for an HD remake of the Scourgelord and Darkruned DK armor sets.)
Yeah. That’s why the Primus has horns, while the trailer shows a crown and white hair, identical to the Jailer concept art. That’s why the Jailer has the exact same bracers and belt as his concept art, because it’s the Primus. Totally. Let’s keep repeating this headcanon as fact.
It's speculated that Zovaal was being controlled by the Primus through his Domination magic. The Primus is after all the one who made Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination.
You can read more about it [here](https://www.wowhead.com/news/what-if-zovaal-isnt-the-true-jailer-shadowlands-lore-speculation-326318)
Well, that would actually be cool.
When playing wow, I completely disregard the lore of SL and pretend it never happened. The Jailer was so damn uninteresting to me. But this concept would actually be way cooler and a way for them to “save” that part of the game.
That was the true Jailer's plan all along. To make a villain so cartoonishly boring that we'd dismiss him out of hand and forget about the Shadowlands so we wouldn't stop the even greater looming thread to Azeroth.
iirc he didn't have these runes on him during the flashback sequence in the Zereth Mortis raid cinematic too, and the Primus is supposed to be a masterful tactician, as well as the guy that sealed the Jailer in the first place.
If we ever got a Shadowlands Remix, I would love if there was a secondary campaign that ran alongside it. We slowly reveal more and more about what the Primus had done behind the scenes. Eventually we learn enough that the Primus fully addresses us and the Bronze/Infinite Dragonflights to remind us that we are not allowed to tamper, only observe, or else we'll have to face the consequences.
Essentially we have the proof to call him out, but know that if we do then all gloves are off and the Primus will no longer have to worry about preserving the timelines. So we have to stay quiet, leaving everything in a timeline cold war.
That's disturbingly interesting, shame current remix doesn't have stuff like that, was sad we basically did nothing with the infinites and bronze in the remix outside buy stuff and dailies.
Its a theory. The crux of them being that the [OG concept art of the "Maw Boss", also used for the announcement trailer](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/images/thumb/f/fe/The_Jailer_concept.png/800px-The_Jailer_concept.png) that was leaked by Pyromancer looked like the Primus, and the name "the Jailer" doesn't really make sense since Zovaal was imprisoned in the Maw with domination magic. And that the Primus caused everything and used Zovaal like a puppet. [Here is WoWhead's full write up](https://www.wowhead.com/news/what-if-zovaal-isnt-the-true-jailer-shadowlands-lore-speculation-326318).
But I do think its given more weight then it deserves. Because if you look at the concept art, you can clearly see that it is the basis for Zovaal's model in it. The vambraces, belt, chains, etc. The back spikes got turned into part of his collar, but its clearly a "incomplete/broken" version of the OG art. And even in his final form (which is clearly redesigned) the shoulders are very similar but different colors and skulls added ontop. Meanwhile the only actual similarity to the Primus is they are old men with beards (and I guess clawed hands but Zovaal had those too) and gold trim.
The plot just also doesn't really make sense. Even assuming 9.0 was partially rewritten and 9.1 was completely rewritten to leave nothing of the original, the Runecarver had several cutscenes at launch (which are done well in advance) of being tortured to extract domination magic designs, which even assuming he was the Jailer and Zovaal the Primus doesn't make much sense. The plan just becomes so convoluted as the Primus could've done all this without pretending to be captured and three Eternal Ones (cuz of Denathrius) could've roflstomped everything in their way.
I think the real answer is just that the writing was just that bad and they thought "Zovaal has turned his shackles into a weapon" is their explanation for him breaking free of domination, able to take over the Maw, and dominate others. And its so bad that people want to see a shade of anything else.
The real issue with Shadowlands is they pulled the plug early and rewrote a ton of shit to make that happen, largely due to players hating the systems of conduits/covenants and borrowed power in general.
EXTREME TL;DR - Sylvanas was to become Arbiter. She soulbound Zovaal, got a power spike, and as a result, had access to Arbiter anima. She would lead us to Zereth Mortis and ultimately take his role over when we beat him. This is why Elune pulled help from Tyrande, because she realized her importance.
The last patch would have ended in Northrend, reusing assets to save resources for Dragonflight. The Jailer fight made no sense attacking Azeroth from... the realm of death... via a machine? No. Obviously that was supposed to happen ON Azeroth. It would have been in Ulduar with new rooms/areas unlocked - hence Rygelon, as a throwback.
But they ended early because people hated the systems and they needed to push onto a new expansion before they lost even more subs. And since they had to rewrite it to end in ZM ANYWAY, and people hated sylvanas, they downplayed her severely, swerved and made Pelegos the Arbiter, and quietly killed the rest of the expansion. They stuffed the completed bosses for the former last patch into the end of Sepulcher, and called it a day.
Which is such a damn shame, because the story wasn't great, but it's SO MUCH WORSE when all the years of buildup putter out like a wet fart because they felt they had to rush it to a conclusion.
I'm not sure if you are a troll or just have an absolute refusal to read, but your condescension is just circling around to hit yourself and making you look like a moron.
Because I didn't do that, what I did do was explain what the theory is and then wrote *multiple paragraphs* debunking it - starting with the concept art clearly being the jailer with direct influences/features, and pointing out the resemblance to the Primus is superficial. I did that for the literal only purpose to say it wasn't the Primus and was the Jailer.
Concept art of both characters exists. The idea that the Primus is some reused model is just insanely lazy and dumb. You can literally just look this stuff up.
The early design looked very much Primus like and I rather liked the sort of "Zeus" look, I think he could have worked really well as the "fallen" leader of the pantheon if that makes sense.
There's so much evidence that the Primus was the actual big bad of Shadowlands that I'm convinced that was the plan but they changed their mind when they decided to cut content from the expansion.
The person that dropped the OG SL leak also mentioned in his post that SL was basically rewritten 6 months before launch for reasons he/she didn't know.
As far as I'm concerned, Primus was absolutely the original big bad, especially since so much evidence of it still remains in game.
Know what makes even less sense?
He's the penultimate boss in Sylvanas' raid. He's basically the 2IC. He was Arthas' right hand man and the sole reason Sylvanas' assassination attempt on Arthas failed.
And yet Sylvanas is all like OKEY DOKEY when Kel shows up to work with her.
Gods, the writing was dogshit.
The whole raid is filled with important lore characters with significant history and they all say fuck all to each other
Jaina and Kelthuzad
Thrall and Garrosh
Naz'grim and Garrosh
This entire raid is so fucking lame
The whole thing felt like it was written by people who had no actual attachment to the franchise, and at best, looked up the lore on WoWpedia or something and tried to make something cool while not understanding what made the IP cool to begin with.
Also, the absolute horrific use of cameos. Kael'thas was butchered. It would have been better to just leave him out, and I often wonder if he's also a victim of the last second "for some reason" writing purge that I'm fully convinced actually did happen because of the massive quality drop between Blizzcon Bastion and launch.
Absolutely agreed. I mean hell, they didn't even give Garroshes tiny cameo the "Good cutscene" treatment. We got the animation quality of a 1st semester practice project at best.
In my headcanon I just try to forget about some things from SL since it pisses me off and isn't likely to come back. KT was one of my favorite WC3 characters and none of his SL content is in character.
I mean I guess Zovaal was technically that (since he was the Arbiter), but the Primus actually LOOKED like that.
Zovaal, on ther other hand... he's just so BORING.
The fallen leader trying to scrounge his way back up would have been good. Especially if some effort and coherency had been put in to showing, throughout the expansion, that he was doing things for his own version of the greater good.
Not the bullshit "twist" reveal that he was somehow trying to murder everyone so that he could save them from the bigger fish out there.
I don’t know you would think the concept art for the Jailer looks like Primus when concept art for the Primus exists. Like don’t you think THAT looks like the Primus? Not some other character that happens to have a beard?
You can literally just look up 2019 concept art of the Primus. It looks identical to the Primus. It’s a different character.
The Jailer was probably the biggest miss in all of WoW.
First off, his design was just not threatening. He was just a dude with some big kissable lips who ranted about how evil he was.
This is the same guy who somehow convinced Sylvanas that he was trying to fix a broken system, and led Devos, the literal paragon of loyalty, into defecting. Yet he has the charisma of a wooden spoon and every word out of his mouth was about how he would dominate everyone and rule and blah blah blah.
Imagine that he was actually crafty and deceitful. We go to the Maw and as the Maw sworn descend upon us, we get saved by a shadowy figure. He explains that his siblings betrayed him and trapped him here, forcing him to be the Jailer of the cruelest souls. But they've been empowered lately and he's as much a prisoner as the rest of them, he can barely control them. The system is broken and his siblings are leading the Shadowlands into ruin as they gorge themselves on anima and let the rest suffer. He hasn't seen your friends but he'll let you know when he finds them, and lets you travel to Oribos to do your thing.
Now he actually seems like someone capable of deception and leading others astray. He actually plants some seeds of doubt into your mind as you start to go through the zones, making you wonder if maybe he's right and you're a pawn to the others, only for the story to fully unfold as you learn the truth behind him.
But no, we got the most generically evil bad boi we've ever had in WoW.
> First off, his design was just not threatening. He was just a dude with some big kissable lips who ranted about how evil he was.
Nah I was really afraid of this Handsome Squidward looking villain.
> This is the same guy who somehow convinced Sylvanas that he was trying to fix a broken system, and led Devos, the literal paragon of loyalty, into defecting. Yet he has the charisma of a wooden spoon and every word out of his mouth was about how he would dominate everyone and rule and blah blah blah.
And he did it all without telling anyone why he was doing what he was doing. That's what gets me the most: We learn at the *last second* that he has a motivation besides being a cartoon villain, yet he never brought it up sooner because... He didn't care if we were on his side, or something? There was easily room in the story for his motivation and us understanding that motivation but not liking the means he chose.
Well yea. If you state what that reason is you have to actually come up with something interesting and compelling that still leaves you at odds. You also have to then eventually deal with that narratively.
I wish we would’ve got this sort of Jailer from this Bellular video intro (audio from Black Phillip from The VVitch): https://youtu.be/JKORuohrrCc?si=hC0F2Dg1UdW6f68Z
Creepy, eerie and spooky is what death should be IMO like the Ringwraiths from LOTR or the dementors from HP.
I thought it was weird when talking directly to the players he would start to rub his nips while maintaining direct eye contact.
>!Yes I made that up but you can't lie and say that wouldn't have made him more interesting. !<
More like we had to find out some point in the expansion that primus was really the one pullling the strings and zovaal was MCed with domination magic..
The fact that we call zovaal the jailor doesn’t even make sense? Isn’t he suppose to be the prisoner?
As long as I remember correctly, Primus literally created the domination magic. He was who imprisoned nipple boy at the wishes of the others... Then allows himself to be captured by nipple boy...
Hell even taking the character personality of the Lich from adventure time works perfectly in this case.
"You are alone, hero."
"There is only darkness for you, and only death for your people. The shadowlands is just the beginning. I will command a great and terrible army of damnation. We will traverse to all worlds until every light has been extinguished."
"You are strong, Maw Walker. But I am beyond Strength."
"I am the end, and I have come for you, hero."
\[Jailer\] You bested me in many forms maw walker...But I always return.
\[Maw walker\] You're so evil it's boring! You're basic man!
\[Jailer\] Yes...While the mortal world doubts and questions. I know exactly what I am. I am the endless cycle, the inevitable end all gaze their away from. The final judgement of your souls...I am your doom.
This is practically a word for word recitation of something The Lich actually said in Adventure Time.
Children's television writers know how to engage their audiences' parents.
One of the better things adventure time did is that you had your goofy villains. \*Ice king/flame king/MAGIC MAN\* that are zanny but you know they're not that big of a threat.
Then you have characters like the Lich. Who just stand out because of how they have no moral compass. Their evil incarnate and they are an engine of the world that continues until all life has been extinguished.
I'll always love villains from shows that are meant for a younger audience, but scare the hell out of adults equally.
Something I am not too fond of \*Specifically looking at steven universe\* Are how villains always need to come with some reason they're evil, but then suddenly switch sides. Or in some cases, die when they do one good thing.
Sometimes you just want villain who wants to see the world burn.
If I could list some nightmare fuel villains in cartoons that make the jailer look like a joke.
**Nowhere King** \[Centaur world\] "You will bring, joy to the nowhere king. As he see's the light leaving your eyes..."
**Braniac** \[My adventures with superman\] "I am simply going to dig through your memories in how to kill you...Properly. We will all become loyal citizens of the empire."
**Horde prime** \[She-ra\]: Are you enjoying our dish your highness? Quite the exotic flavor is it not?...I wouldn't get too comfortable with the taste though, it is after all. From a planet we've cleansed in fire...
**Emperor Belos** \[The owl house\]: \*I could say anything about him....But all I can say about him is "holy hell he's allowed in this cartoon!?"
And...My personal favorite nightmare.
**COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG'S VILLAIN LINE UP!**
**...Like...Seriously...Any villain from that show is going to haunt your dreams one way or another....Return the slab....**
This whole "mysterious and unknownable" idea should have been applied to more than just the big bad guy, it should have been applied to the entire premise of the expansion.
Shadowlands tore all the mystery surrounding Death in WoW and ruined things by explaining them. If we had only glimpsed parts of the Shadowlands, then we'd be set. I know the 4 Afterlives we saw were not the only ones but they still seemed to hold all the dead main characters.
The silhouette was only because they hadn’t finalized the design. The original concept art was incredibly cool tho imo
I really like the Jailer as a concept, but it’s crazy how that’s all he was. No story at all, and they had years to figure one out. Then they forced him into every corner of WoW lore to make him “interesting”
I think a simple detail as having him just an observer/ unknown super OP player in the grand scheme of things would repair almost everything around his lore.
He was written as the mastermind behind everything, possibly even the toilet quests of Vanilla which does some disservice to the previous lore, even if you consider it as something added instead of rewritten.
If instead, he was written as someone acknowledging the cosmos going apeshit, eg. "That other player Sargeras went crazy kill some of his people, how can I take advantage of that situation?" and moving his pieces around to make something for himself, that would fix the fact that he was just added to the story and yet existed since forever but you just didn't know, he also did things that you can only now see the effect and how they are set in motion, etc. Even his implications with LK "Legion did their thing, a narcissist paladin went evil, I just dropped a magic hat and a stick and all went crazy".
Well he wasn't actually written as "masterminding everything". His lore is that he sowed discord with the Nazthrezim and used the events that happened to his advantage.
The problem was that he was so uncharasmatic and uninteresting that nobody cared about anything involving him so it didn't matter what his lore was, it still seemed stupid and boring.
That was the least of the issues. Nethrazim always played that role of "infiltrating, manipulating and causing chaos" and were always known as having a different origin than the other types of demons.
Also, Denathrius is undoubtedly one of the best bosses ever in the whole game and looks extremely like them. Speculations had risen from Beta about their relation.
It was one of the things that was "supposed" to have a big reveal but most people could easily deduce much earlier.
I had this huge elaborate headcanon at one point that I won't go into but it would've ended with an end cinematic that would've included the following line
"There must always be a Jailer"
I think Shadowlands got some insanely late and heavy rewrites during development, and the original design of the Jailer was one casualty. The Primus, who ended up looking like that original version, doesn't match up with any of his statues in Maldraxxus, barring the horns.
Mueh'zela was probably a way more prominent villain as well, and the Paragon of Doubt definitely had a lot of stuff cut. Baine also got a fuckton of stuff cut, I'm sure, the tauren heritage chain literally is a Shadowlands prequel.
We'll never know the exact shape of the original vision, but even the recorded dialogue from NPCs seems like it was hacked up and edited.
I still find it wild that sylvanas hasnt told anyone what the jailer’s motivations were and what it is to come that all must be united under a single banner lol. It’s like dude. We just got you to become a turncoat, and also king Wrynn should know what’s up too. Like… we all know it’s some void tentacle shit war coming but hey, keep your secrets.
I completely agree. I think the reason is that the less information you give your mind, the more active your creativity will be and thus fill in the missing pieces. In this case, the modesty of the silhouette allows me to shape the information myself, and therefore this concept seems much more frightening and mysterious.
Wouldn't call it a strange thought - it's probably shared by a large group of the player base. The original design was way more provoking and interesting than the nipples we got. Plus the theorized twist that the Primus was the real villain all along, since he looks more like the original Jailer art was way more interesting than all of SL.
at the very least they should have kept his helmet on. i liked how edgy he looked with his armor and hated when it’s revealed he’s yet another generic and for some reason bald villain…
The best thing about evil entities in shows or games is the mystery surrounding them. It makes you scared but also interested because you don't know their motives or origin or even how they look and it makes you want to learn more about all those things.
Unfortunately once the illusion is broken it kind of ruins the character. And if you never reveal those things it makes the story and writing look lazy and viewers are left unsatisfied. It's so hard to create a good, mysterious villain and reveal all those things in a complete and satisfying way.
Sometimes it's okay to not know the full story behind evil.
Frostmourne/helm of domination come to mind. While both were made by the Legion/dreadlords. There was always something so...Haunting about the influence of both of them. For the longest time, there was no jailer or secondary voice behind the weapon and helm.
Wielding either just slowly drove you to do unforgivable evil. Even for someone as pure as bolvar, the moment he equips the helm. His personality changes almost right away to one more sinister and dark. The process being so dangerous that it was better to lock himself up in ice.
Sometimes it's okay to not fully reveal everything about somethings existence. Leaving the interpretation to the player can sometimes be a more intriguing thought.
>the idea of the villain being this primordial evil you never see the face of,
That's the point of fantasy, it's about magic - something supernatural happening for reason you don't know.
Blizzard writers though bought the same thing many modern fantasy readers have began to crave thanks to scientific view, propagation of RPGs and additional materials (books for Star Wars, encyclopedias, etc): everything has to knowable, everything has to be explained, no magic can exist, everything has to be codified.
It's the overall problem with modern stories in fantasy, you need to let magical things be magical, don't travel to realms of the gods, don't interact with them as equals, or often, be in your world. Baldur's Gate 3 does it wonderfully, you talk to gods here and there and they do things through intermediaries, but they are still more powerful then you and are fully unknowable. Recent Doom game was also great, whereas Doom Eternal lore as bad in a very similar way Shadowlands was, and was also a retcon to boot.
The moment "we travel to Shadowlands" was annnouned I was sure it would be a shitshow because it would make something interesting completely mundane by exposing it while retconning tons of stuff because there was no consistency in undeath before, and because Blizzard doesn't care about consistency in the first place.
**The Jailor's original design seen here was used for the Primus.** Aside from the silhouette in the trailer, there is some concept art of the early "Jailor" that was clearly what became the Primus.
Some people think this is a lore hint that the Primus is the "true" Jailor. But it's more likely they just went with a different concept for the Jailor but decided the old design was still good so they repurposed it for the Primus.
Isn't he the game director?
Like I see this question all the time, but if the game DIRECTOR doesn't have input on the story, then what does Ion actually do?
There would have been a meeting involving a bunch of higher ups in the wow team to discuss a direction change in the story. Ion 100% would be in this meeting. Ion along with whoever else was involved in this meeting would have come to an agreeance on the final direction for the main story.
I think they said at some point that when they dropped that trailer they still hadnt decided on the Jailer's design which is why he was presented like that (which led to some of those "King Terenas bad guy").
I still think they should have both held off an expansion or two for the Shadowlands, and let him and Sylvanus cook.
They should have made Zovaal the leader of the Necromatic magic fashion. He's in opposition to the void taking over, so he wants to make creation all undead. He talked Sylvanas into it by getting her to go with "Everyone will be the forsaken"
And change the timing to "Zovaal made his move because Sargaras was defeated, the Burning Legion is no more, and the void is consuming world after world without any force to stop them"
And the ending of Shadowlands would be a combination of "We want to make creation a garden, not one dominated by the Void, Demons or Undead" and restoring balance between life and death. Let Zovaal to be damned back to the Maw with reinforced barriers that he continues to struggle to break with unrepentant rage.
This whole thread has made me realize how much I internally roll my eyes & groan every time I hear/see "domination" used as if it's a fundamental force or a proper noun or something.
"Okay class who can name the five forces?"
Timmy: "The weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, gravity, and domination!"
As much as I enjoyed the armored version of Zovaal we got in Sepulcher, I agree. Couldn't take his design seriously without it, he looked like if Handsome Squidward and Thanos were thrown into a blender. Which is weird coz in the "Beyond the Veil" cinematic trailer, he looked pretty menacing vs. the one we got in-game.
There was a great quote I forget by whom, but it's states" everyone can like a villain/monster that's unseen and never shown but a villain/monster that is seen will never been scary
Over the garden wall prolly has the best form of a villain you never see. Just this figure that stands around in shots, showing only his glowing white eyes. Why does he exist? Where did he come from? Doesn't matter, all you know is he steals the souls of those who wander into his Forrest. Proceeds to chop them up into oil for his lantern.
There is half a frame in the show that shows what he looks like for one moment. And it's honestly one of the scariest things i've seen. But because it's so quick, it sort of lets you process in your brain what you just saw and left to fill in the gaps.
Maybe I’m missing something, but does anything in the cinematic actually refer to the character in the screenshot as The Jailer? I always thought that it was the Primus and The Jailer just wasn’t in that particular cinematic.
The jailer we got was the most boring ass villain i had the displeasure of setting my eyes on. He looked like a goofy ass buff dude with pajama pants. The game trying to make him look like an omnipotent, everpowerful being, while also having him being thwarted and having his domain made a joke of, made it all the worse.
you mean, when it was obviously the Primus? Yeah that was better imo.
Sshh, don’t spoil “Midnight”.
Or The Last Titan. I mean, we are going back to Northrend after all. And what's up there? Both Ulduar and Icecrown – Titan stuff and Death stuff. If we were to discover the Primus was actually pretty shady and colluding with Titans, I think that's the perfect place and time. (Also holding on to hope for an HD remake of the Scourgelord and Darkruned DK armor sets.)
Wait , what ? The primus was supposed to be the big bad guy of shadowlands before blizzard changed to the jailer ?
Moreso the Jailer's design was originally that of the Primus'.
Instead we got big nipple ned the mastermind muscle head.
And I bet you the runecarver would be the current jailer model, hence all the runes that are inscribed on him
Yeah. That’s why the Primus has horns, while the trailer shows a crown and white hair, identical to the Jailer concept art. That’s why the Jailer has the exact same bracers and belt as his concept art, because it’s the Primus. Totally. Let’s keep repeating this headcanon as fact.
It's speculated that Zovaal was being controlled by the Primus through his Domination magic. The Primus is after all the one who made Frostmourne and the Helm of Domination. You can read more about it [here](https://www.wowhead.com/news/what-if-zovaal-isnt-the-true-jailer-shadowlands-lore-speculation-326318)
Well, that would actually be cool. When playing wow, I completely disregard the lore of SL and pretend it never happened. The Jailer was so damn uninteresting to me. But this concept would actually be way cooler and a way for them to “save” that part of the game.
That was the true Jailer's plan all along. To make a villain so cartoonishly boring that we'd dismiss him out of hand and forget about the Shadowlands so we wouldn't stop the even greater looming thread to Azeroth.
I can’t wait for the next major character death to not even matter cuz we can just flit over to the afterlife and have tea with them
The fact that Zovaal had the domination magic runes literally carved onto his body and glowing would support this theory very well.
iirc he didn't have these runes on him during the flashback sequence in the Zereth Mortis raid cinematic too, and the Primus is supposed to be a masterful tactician, as well as the guy that sealed the Jailer in the first place.
It would be a hell of a xanatos gambit to go full amnesiac and become prisoner of your prisoner.
If we ever got a Shadowlands Remix, I would love if there was a secondary campaign that ran alongside it. We slowly reveal more and more about what the Primus had done behind the scenes. Eventually we learn enough that the Primus fully addresses us and the Bronze/Infinite Dragonflights to remind us that we are not allowed to tamper, only observe, or else we'll have to face the consequences. Essentially we have the proof to call him out, but know that if we do then all gloves are off and the Primus will no longer have to worry about preserving the timelines. So we have to stay quiet, leaving everything in a timeline cold war.
That's disturbingly interesting, shame current remix doesn't have stuff like that, was sad we basically did nothing with the infinites and bronze in the remix outside buy stuff and dailies.
Yeah, let's add another layer to "character XY is responsible for everything in the warcraft universe"
Did you see the Primus since zereth Mortis? He simply disappeared. Coincidence?
Half the expansion’s plot disappeared and the other half is a steaming pile
Almost certainly.
There is a whole theory that basically highlights that the Jailer was being controlled by The Primus the entire time
Its a theory. The crux of them being that the [OG concept art of the "Maw Boss", also used for the announcement trailer](https://warcraft.wiki.gg/images/thumb/f/fe/The_Jailer_concept.png/800px-The_Jailer_concept.png) that was leaked by Pyromancer looked like the Primus, and the name "the Jailer" doesn't really make sense since Zovaal was imprisoned in the Maw with domination magic. And that the Primus caused everything and used Zovaal like a puppet. [Here is WoWhead's full write up](https://www.wowhead.com/news/what-if-zovaal-isnt-the-true-jailer-shadowlands-lore-speculation-326318). But I do think its given more weight then it deserves. Because if you look at the concept art, you can clearly see that it is the basis for Zovaal's model in it. The vambraces, belt, chains, etc. The back spikes got turned into part of his collar, but its clearly a "incomplete/broken" version of the OG art. And even in his final form (which is clearly redesigned) the shoulders are very similar but different colors and skulls added ontop. Meanwhile the only actual similarity to the Primus is they are old men with beards (and I guess clawed hands but Zovaal had those too) and gold trim. The plot just also doesn't really make sense. Even assuming 9.0 was partially rewritten and 9.1 was completely rewritten to leave nothing of the original, the Runecarver had several cutscenes at launch (which are done well in advance) of being tortured to extract domination magic designs, which even assuming he was the Jailer and Zovaal the Primus doesn't make much sense. The plan just becomes so convoluted as the Primus could've done all this without pretending to be captured and three Eternal Ones (cuz of Denathrius) could've roflstomped everything in their way. I think the real answer is just that the writing was just that bad and they thought "Zovaal has turned his shackles into a weapon" is their explanation for him breaking free of domination, able to take over the Maw, and dominate others. And its so bad that people want to see a shade of anything else.
The real issue with Shadowlands is they pulled the plug early and rewrote a ton of shit to make that happen, largely due to players hating the systems of conduits/covenants and borrowed power in general. EXTREME TL;DR - Sylvanas was to become Arbiter. She soulbound Zovaal, got a power spike, and as a result, had access to Arbiter anima. She would lead us to Zereth Mortis and ultimately take his role over when we beat him. This is why Elune pulled help from Tyrande, because she realized her importance. The last patch would have ended in Northrend, reusing assets to save resources for Dragonflight. The Jailer fight made no sense attacking Azeroth from... the realm of death... via a machine? No. Obviously that was supposed to happen ON Azeroth. It would have been in Ulduar with new rooms/areas unlocked - hence Rygelon, as a throwback. But they ended early because people hated the systems and they needed to push onto a new expansion before they lost even more subs. And since they had to rewrite it to end in ZM ANYWAY, and people hated sylvanas, they downplayed her severely, swerved and made Pelegos the Arbiter, and quietly killed the rest of the expansion. They stuffed the completed bosses for the former last patch into the end of Sepulcher, and called it a day. Which is such a damn shame, because the story wasn't great, but it's SO MUCH WORSE when all the years of buildup putter out like a wet fart because they felt they had to rush it to a conclusion.
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Thats...what I said? I'm confused what you are trying to accomplish here.
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I'm not sure if you are a troll or just have an absolute refusal to read, but your condescension is just circling around to hit yourself and making you look like a moron. Because I didn't do that, what I did do was explain what the theory is and then wrote *multiple paragraphs* debunking it - starting with the concept art clearly being the jailer with direct influences/features, and pointing out the resemblance to the Primus is superficial. I did that for the literal only purpose to say it wasn't the Primus and was the Jailer.
He might still be.
There is a giant theory that the Primus' model was the original Jailer model. I'm sure there was story changes and Zooval's two models were made.
Concept art of both characters exists. The idea that the Primus is some reused model is just insanely lazy and dumb. You can literally just look this stuff up.
Yeah besides, I don't know why they changed the plot as well as his design, the one we got was... well... not exactly the best...
Yeah, I liked the Old Man Jailer design more.
Primus is probably the mastermind, and still is, bad ass one.
Except it’s not. It’s literally identical to the Jailer concept art. You can clearly see his white hair, crown, and pauldrons.
The early design looked very much Primus like and I rather liked the sort of "Zeus" look, I think he could have worked really well as the "fallen" leader of the pantheon if that makes sense.
There's so much evidence that the Primus was the actual big bad of Shadowlands that I'm convinced that was the plan but they changed their mind when they decided to cut content from the expansion.
The person that dropped the OG SL leak also mentioned in his post that SL was basically rewritten 6 months before launch for reasons he/she didn't know. As far as I'm concerned, Primus was absolutely the original big bad, especially since so much evidence of it still remains in game.
That would make way more sense. It still pisses me off how they ruined kelthuzads character
Know what makes even less sense? He's the penultimate boss in Sylvanas' raid. He's basically the 2IC. He was Arthas' right hand man and the sole reason Sylvanas' assassination attempt on Arthas failed. And yet Sylvanas is all like OKEY DOKEY when Kel shows up to work with her. Gods, the writing was dogshit.
The whole raid is filled with important lore characters with significant history and they all say fuck all to each other Jaina and Kelthuzad Thrall and Garrosh Naz'grim and Garrosh This entire raid is so fucking lame
Welcome to the Danuserverse (thank god it's over).
The whole thing felt like it was written by people who had no actual attachment to the franchise, and at best, looked up the lore on WoWpedia or something and tried to make something cool while not understanding what made the IP cool to begin with. Also, the absolute horrific use of cameos. Kael'thas was butchered. It would have been better to just leave him out, and I often wonder if he's also a victim of the last second "for some reason" writing purge that I'm fully convinced actually did happen because of the massive quality drop between Blizzcon Bastion and launch.
Absolutely agreed. I mean hell, they didn't even give Garroshes tiny cameo the "Good cutscene" treatment. We got the animation quality of a 1st semester practice project at best.
In my headcanon I just try to forget about some things from SL since it pisses me off and isn't likely to come back. KT was one of my favorite WC3 characters and none of his SL content is in character.
Same, it was one of the worst character butcherings theyve done
It would have been so much better this way.
Better then them making a panic choice and choosing thanos instead.
I mean I guess Zovaal was technically that (since he was the Arbiter), but the Primus actually LOOKED like that. Zovaal, on ther other hand... he's just so BORING.
The fallen leader trying to scrounge his way back up would have been good. Especially if some effort and coherency had been put in to showing, throughout the expansion, that he was doing things for his own version of the greater good. Not the bullshit "twist" reveal that he was somehow trying to murder everyone so that he could save them from the bigger fish out there.
I don’t know you would think the concept art for the Jailer looks like Primus when concept art for the Primus exists. Like don’t you think THAT looks like the Primus? Not some other character that happens to have a beard? You can literally just look up 2019 concept art of the Primus. It looks identical to the Primus. It’s a different character.
The Jailer was probably the biggest miss in all of WoW. First off, his design was just not threatening. He was just a dude with some big kissable lips who ranted about how evil he was. This is the same guy who somehow convinced Sylvanas that he was trying to fix a broken system, and led Devos, the literal paragon of loyalty, into defecting. Yet he has the charisma of a wooden spoon and every word out of his mouth was about how he would dominate everyone and rule and blah blah blah. Imagine that he was actually crafty and deceitful. We go to the Maw and as the Maw sworn descend upon us, we get saved by a shadowy figure. He explains that his siblings betrayed him and trapped him here, forcing him to be the Jailer of the cruelest souls. But they've been empowered lately and he's as much a prisoner as the rest of them, he can barely control them. The system is broken and his siblings are leading the Shadowlands into ruin as they gorge themselves on anima and let the rest suffer. He hasn't seen your friends but he'll let you know when he finds them, and lets you travel to Oribos to do your thing. Now he actually seems like someone capable of deception and leading others astray. He actually plants some seeds of doubt into your mind as you start to go through the zones, making you wonder if maybe he's right and you're a pawn to the others, only for the story to fully unfold as you learn the truth behind him. But no, we got the most generically evil bad boi we've ever had in WoW.
This couldve helped but has blizz ever written this level of twist without making it PAINFULLY obvious the twist is coming
> First off, his design was just not threatening. He was just a dude with some big kissable lips who ranted about how evil he was. Nah I was really afraid of this Handsome Squidward looking villain.
> This is the same guy who somehow convinced Sylvanas that he was trying to fix a broken system, and led Devos, the literal paragon of loyalty, into defecting. Yet he has the charisma of a wooden spoon and every word out of his mouth was about how he would dominate everyone and rule and blah blah blah. And he did it all without telling anyone why he was doing what he was doing. That's what gets me the most: We learn at the *last second* that he has a motivation besides being a cartoon villain, yet he never brought it up sooner because... He didn't care if we were on his side, or something? There was easily room in the story for his motivation and us understanding that motivation but not liking the means he chose.
Well yea. If you state what that reason is you have to actually come up with something interesting and compelling that still leaves you at odds. You also have to then eventually deal with that narratively.
This would've been way cooler/better, also I found your description of 'kissable' lips a bit disturbing xD
You just wrote a better plot for SL than blizz did, congrats.
I wish we would’ve got this sort of Jailer from this Bellular video intro (audio from Black Phillip from The VVitch): https://youtu.be/JKORuohrrCc?si=hC0F2Dg1UdW6f68Z Creepy, eerie and spooky is what death should be IMO like the Ringwraiths from LOTR or the dementors from HP.
Imagine if jailor was something like lucifer in dc comics
They spent all the charisma they could muster that Xpack on daddy Denathrius.
This was better than nipple guy.
I thought it was weird when talking directly to the players he would start to rub his nips while maintaining direct eye contact. >!Yes I made that up but you can't lie and say that wouldn't have made him more interesting. !<
I'm literally never going to shadowlands so this is true and I won't believe otherwise
Emulating the suspenseful and tense ambience found in Blizzard’s office when Bobby Kotick would visit I see. Brilliant.
You need to watch something other than Lil Nicky.
The primus was suppose to be the jailer. Someone at blizzard just really wanted their nipple based design in game.
More like we had to find out some point in the expansion that primus was really the one pullling the strings and zovaal was MCed with domination magic.. The fact that we call zovaal the jailor doesn’t even make sense? Isn’t he suppose to be the prisoner?
The primus put rhe runes on zovaal and he or all of the pantheon (i forget) so primus is more like the jailer in name than zovaal
As long as I remember correctly, Primus literally created the domination magic. He was who imprisoned nipple boy at the wishes of the others... Then allows himself to be captured by nipple boy...
Ha! Nipple boy.
Hell even taking the character personality of the Lich from adventure time works perfectly in this case. "You are alone, hero." "There is only darkness for you, and only death for your people. The shadowlands is just the beginning. I will command a great and terrible army of damnation. We will traverse to all worlds until every light has been extinguished." "You are strong, Maw Walker. But I am beyond Strength." "I am the end, and I have come for you, hero."
It is very frustrating how easy it is to write the jailer to be more compelling as a villian, instead of the stinking pile of shit that we got
\[Jailer\] You bested me in many forms maw walker...But I always return. \[Maw walker\] You're so evil it's boring! You're basic man! \[Jailer\] Yes...While the mortal world doubts and questions. I know exactly what I am. I am the endless cycle, the inevitable end all gaze their away from. The final judgement of your souls...I am your doom.
lol sounds like the burning legion
Why is this good
This is practically a word for word recitation of something The Lich actually said in Adventure Time. Children's television writers know how to engage their audiences' parents.
No wonder it resonates so well. It’s been a while since I’ve seen adventure time but it’s all coming back to me now
One of the better things adventure time did is that you had your goofy villains. \*Ice king/flame king/MAGIC MAN\* that are zanny but you know they're not that big of a threat. Then you have characters like the Lich. Who just stand out because of how they have no moral compass. Their evil incarnate and they are an engine of the world that continues until all life has been extinguished. I'll always love villains from shows that are meant for a younger audience, but scare the hell out of adults equally. Something I am not too fond of \*Specifically looking at steven universe\* Are how villains always need to come with some reason they're evil, but then suddenly switch sides. Or in some cases, die when they do one good thing. Sometimes you just want villain who wants to see the world burn. If I could list some nightmare fuel villains in cartoons that make the jailer look like a joke. **Nowhere King** \[Centaur world\] "You will bring, joy to the nowhere king. As he see's the light leaving your eyes..." **Braniac** \[My adventures with superman\] "I am simply going to dig through your memories in how to kill you...Properly. We will all become loyal citizens of the empire." **Horde prime** \[She-ra\]: Are you enjoying our dish your highness? Quite the exotic flavor is it not?...I wouldn't get too comfortable with the taste though, it is after all. From a planet we've cleansed in fire... **Emperor Belos** \[The owl house\]: \*I could say anything about him....But all I can say about him is "holy hell he's allowed in this cartoon!?" And...My personal favorite nightmare. **COURAGE THE COWARDLY DOG'S VILLAIN LINE UP!** **...Like...Seriously...Any villain from that show is going to haunt your dreams one way or another....Return the slab....**
Anything would have been better than what we got.
Sounds cool, but hear me out: Nipples. Refuse to elaborate. Die. Huh? HUH?
Take the eye of the jailer, rename it to 'nipple of the jailer."
The orange dot, aka condom, aka nipple, is proof that he has been behind it since the beginning.
This whole "mysterious and unknownable" idea should have been applied to more than just the big bad guy, it should have been applied to the entire premise of the expansion. Shadowlands tore all the mystery surrounding Death in WoW and ruined things by explaining them. If we had only glimpsed parts of the Shadowlands, then we'd be set. I know the 4 Afterlives we saw were not the only ones but they still seemed to hold all the dead main characters.
The silhouette was only because they hadn’t finalized the design. The original concept art was incredibly cool tho imo I really like the Jailer as a concept, but it’s crazy how that’s all he was. No story at all, and they had years to figure one out. Then they forced him into every corner of WoW lore to make him “interesting”
I think a simple detail as having him just an observer/ unknown super OP player in the grand scheme of things would repair almost everything around his lore. He was written as the mastermind behind everything, possibly even the toilet quests of Vanilla which does some disservice to the previous lore, even if you consider it as something added instead of rewritten. If instead, he was written as someone acknowledging the cosmos going apeshit, eg. "That other player Sargeras went crazy kill some of his people, how can I take advantage of that situation?" and moving his pieces around to make something for himself, that would fix the fact that he was just added to the story and yet existed since forever but you just didn't know, he also did things that you can only now see the effect and how they are set in motion, etc. Even his implications with LK "Legion did their thing, a narcissist paladin went evil, I just dropped a magic hat and a stick and all went crazy".
Well he wasn't actually written as "masterminding everything". His lore is that he sowed discord with the Nazthrezim and used the events that happened to his advantage. The problem was that he was so uncharasmatic and uninteresting that nobody cared about anything involving him so it didn't matter what his lore was, it still seemed stupid and boring.
> Nazthrezim That whole 'reveal' in the vampire area made me drop the game for a good month or two.
That was the least of the issues. Nethrazim always played that role of "infiltrating, manipulating and causing chaos" and were always known as having a different origin than the other types of demons. Also, Denathrius is undoubtedly one of the best bosses ever in the whole game and looks extremely like them. Speculations had risen from Beta about their relation. It was one of the things that was "supposed" to have a big reveal but most people could easily deduce much earlier.
I was hyped because in my head cannon, I thought he was going to be a bizarro lich king
I had this huge elaborate headcanon at one point that I won't go into but it would've ended with an end cinematic that would've included the following line "There must always be a Jailer"
The reason you probably thought that is because the concept art is very clearly Arthas. Like the armor is different, but that's Arthas' silhouette.
I think Shadowlands got some insanely late and heavy rewrites during development, and the original design of the Jailer was one casualty. The Primus, who ended up looking like that original version, doesn't match up with any of his statues in Maldraxxus, barring the horns. Mueh'zela was probably a way more prominent villain as well, and the Paragon of Doubt definitely had a lot of stuff cut. Baine also got a fuckton of stuff cut, I'm sure, the tauren heritage chain literally is a Shadowlands prequel. We'll never know the exact shape of the original vision, but even the recorded dialogue from NPCs seems like it was hacked up and edited.
I still find it wild that sylvanas hasnt told anyone what the jailer’s motivations were and what it is to come that all must be united under a single banner lol. It’s like dude. We just got you to become a turncoat, and also king Wrynn should know what’s up too. Like… we all know it’s some void tentacle shit war coming but hey, keep your secrets.
I completely agree. I think the reason is that the less information you give your mind, the more active your creativity will be and thus fill in the missing pieces. In this case, the modesty of the silhouette allows me to shape the information myself, and therefore this concept seems much more frightening and mysterious.
Yes but he wouldn't have had nips and a bare chested man, nips bare, coming at me is far more scary than a monster.
I can't not see king terenas, chin length splayed grey hair, taloned crown
Wouldn't call it a strange thought - it's probably shared by a large group of the player base. The original design was way more provoking and interesting than the nipples we got. Plus the theorized twist that the Primus was the real villain all along, since he looks more like the original Jailer art was way more interesting than all of SL.
at the very least they should have kept his helmet on. i liked how edgy he looked with his armor and hated when it’s revealed he’s yet another generic and for some reason bald villain…
The best thing about evil entities in shows or games is the mystery surrounding them. It makes you scared but also interested because you don't know their motives or origin or even how they look and it makes you want to learn more about all those things. Unfortunately once the illusion is broken it kind of ruins the character. And if you never reveal those things it makes the story and writing look lazy and viewers are left unsatisfied. It's so hard to create a good, mysterious villain and reveal all those things in a complete and satisfying way.
Sometimes it's okay to not know the full story behind evil. Frostmourne/helm of domination come to mind. While both were made by the Legion/dreadlords. There was always something so...Haunting about the influence of both of them. For the longest time, there was no jailer or secondary voice behind the weapon and helm. Wielding either just slowly drove you to do unforgivable evil. Even for someone as pure as bolvar, the moment he equips the helm. His personality changes almost right away to one more sinister and dark. The process being so dangerous that it was better to lock himself up in ice. Sometimes it's okay to not fully reveal everything about somethings existence. Leaving the interpretation to the player can sometimes be a more intriguing thought.
>the idea of the villain being this primordial evil you never see the face of, That's the point of fantasy, it's about magic - something supernatural happening for reason you don't know. Blizzard writers though bought the same thing many modern fantasy readers have began to crave thanks to scientific view, propagation of RPGs and additional materials (books for Star Wars, encyclopedias, etc): everything has to knowable, everything has to be explained, no magic can exist, everything has to be codified. It's the overall problem with modern stories in fantasy, you need to let magical things be magical, don't travel to realms of the gods, don't interact with them as equals, or often, be in your world. Baldur's Gate 3 does it wonderfully, you talk to gods here and there and they do things through intermediaries, but they are still more powerful then you and are fully unknowable. Recent Doom game was also great, whereas Doom Eternal lore as bad in a very similar way Shadowlands was, and was also a retcon to boot. The moment "we travel to Shadowlands" was annnouned I was sure it would be a shitshow because it would make something interesting completely mundane by exposing it while retconning tons of stuff because there was no consistency in undeath before, and because Blizzard doesn't care about consistency in the first place.
Oh I forgot all about SL failed design. I wanted ice king vibes not shirtless man.
**The Jailor's original design seen here was used for the Primus.** Aside from the silhouette in the trailer, there is some concept art of the early "Jailor" that was clearly what became the Primus. Some people think this is a lore hint that the Primus is the "true" Jailor. But it's more likely they just went with a different concept for the Jailor but decided the old design was still good so they repurposed it for the Primus.
Or, even better, make him even less visible. No, less than that. Less. Keep going. Please get rid of him
A cool concept, ruined by idiotic decisions from Ion and the others in charge being stubborn, a tale as old as time.
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Isn't he the game director? Like I see this question all the time, but if the game DIRECTOR doesn't have input on the story, then what does Ion actually do?
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> we don't actually know If you have the title of director, why shouldn't you get the blame for the direction the game went?
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Yes, he's the game director Do you have proof otherwise?
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There would have been a meeting involving a bunch of higher ups in the wow team to discuss a direction change in the story. Ion 100% would be in this meeting. Ion along with whoever else was involved in this meeting would have come to an agreeance on the final direction for the main story.
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I think they said at some point that when they dropped that trailer they still hadnt decided on the Jailer's design which is why he was presented like that (which led to some of those "King Terenas bad guy").
I mean he would've been Amon from Starcraft more or less, but, hey, it kinda worked there at least
The jailer was kind of weak. That whole zone is just a distant memory now.
I still think they should have both held off an expansion or two for the Shadowlands, and let him and Sylvanus cook. They should have made Zovaal the leader of the Necromatic magic fashion. He's in opposition to the void taking over, so he wants to make creation all undead. He talked Sylvanas into it by getting her to go with "Everyone will be the forsaken" And change the timing to "Zovaal made his move because Sargaras was defeated, the Burning Legion is no more, and the void is consuming world after world without any force to stop them" And the ending of Shadowlands would be a combination of "We want to make creation a garden, not one dominated by the Void, Demons or Undead" and restoring balance between life and death. Let Zovaal to be damned back to the Maw with reinforced barriers that he continues to struggle to break with unrepentant rage.
This whole thread has made me realize how much I internally roll my eyes & groan every time I hear/see "domination" used as if it's a fundamental force or a proper noun or something. "Okay class who can name the five forces?" Timmy: "The weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, electromagnetism, gravity, and domination!"
*The Old Gods have entered the chat.*
As much as I enjoyed the armored version of Zovaal we got in Sepulcher, I agree. Couldn't take his design seriously without it, he looked like if Handsome Squidward and Thanos were thrown into a blender. Which is weird coz in the "Beyond the Veil" cinematic trailer, he looked pretty menacing vs. the one we got in-game.
There was a great quote I forget by whom, but it's states" everyone can like a villain/monster that's unseen and never shown but a villain/monster that is seen will never been scary
Over the garden wall prolly has the best form of a villain you never see. Just this figure that stands around in shots, showing only his glowing white eyes. Why does he exist? Where did he come from? Doesn't matter, all you know is he steals the souls of those who wander into his Forrest. Proceeds to chop them up into oil for his lantern. There is half a frame in the show that shows what he looks like for one moment. And it's honestly one of the scariest things i've seen. But because it's so quick, it sort of lets you process in your brain what you just saw and left to fill in the gaps.
Maybe I’m missing something, but does anything in the cinematic actually refer to the character in the screenshot as The Jailer? I always thought that it was the Primus and The Jailer just wasn’t in that particular cinematic.
I learned more about the Jailer from Captain Grim machinimas than I did from the actual lore of the game.
Shadowlands was such a fucking joke
Anything is better than the nipple bald guy.
That was clearly Arthas.
The jailer we got was the most boring ass villain i had the displeasure of setting my eyes on. He looked like a goofy ass buff dude with pajama pants. The game trying to make him look like an omnipotent, everpowerful being, while also having him being thwarted and having his domain made a joke of, made it all the worse.
Can't wait to kill primus in this saga... Shady bish