Between that voice acting, his character model, and his position in the shadowlands, I feel as if Denathrius would of made a much better end game bad guy than the jailer.
The Jailer is missing something… I can’t put my finger on it. I just find him so boring and lack luster.
The Jailer does not give me that “Lich King” feel… Denathrius did. The differece is that Blizzard did not make Denathrius the end game boss and powerful with a great lore. But if they did and it was the jailer in the place of Denathrius, I would of like this a lot more.
I mean come on, even his sword has a personality… and imagine having her as a end game weapon or companion pet.
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The Jailer doesn’t really have any character, he’s just the ominous growing threat that we know will be the final boss but only matters as far as the danger he poses rather then his interactions.
He’s Sargeras but with no Lieutenants and none of the buildup of the Burning Legion.
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Honestly the Jailer is supposed to be this mysterious character, but they blew it on the mysterious part. Some people pointed out in the early bugged runecarver cutscene he came across better as this disembodied voice in Torghast. I think blizz made a poor choice to reveal his character so early on as he hardly has anything meaningful to contribute to the initial story.
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The jailer would have been a better fit for a void related character, since he is completely devoid of any interesting characteristics. I have simply never felt anything from him. He is not intimidating, nor mysterious, or in any way a well written character.
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I’m trying to think up a villain less interesting than The Jailer, but it’s been hard so far.
LORD IAMBAD. He just sits in the middle of his zone and one-shots anyone who aggros him. He only ever says his name, ‘I want to make things worse’, and ‘I want things I don’t have’. His model is a human male in his underwear and wields a Terrible Turnip pet as his weapon. He has no cutscenes and his only known motivation is acting on his capacity to do bad things.
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The Jailer is also bound by the Runes of Domination so he utterly lacks Free Will and is following his Purpose albeit subverted by Denathrius’s manipulations!
The Jailer is just a redirected cog in the Machine of Death. Denathrius who has free will(and has railroaded the machine that is the Jailer towards the goals of freeing Death) is naturally an interesting character in comparison.
All Eternals whose Wills aren’t bound by the Runes of Domination(Winter Queen and Sire Denathrius) are interesting characters while those who aren’t(Denathrius, Archon and the Arbiter) are practically machines following whatever function their parameters allow.
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We’ve seen a lot more of Denathrius than the Jailer, so it’s not at all surprising that Denathrius has made a bigger impression.
That said, Denathrius is also incredibly charismatic, has great fashion sense, a beautiful visual character design, and one of the smoothest and richest voices in the game (no disrespect to the rest of the voice talent, it’s a part of his character and Ray Chase is very good at it). Part of that is because he’s meant to come off as somewhat attractive when you first meet him and are initially working with him. He stands out a lot from most other villains in the game because of those traits. The Jailer fills a different role; even if he were a much more threatening and intimidating presence and more visible in the story he’d be very different from Denathrius.
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I agree 100% on the disembodied voice part. He would have seemed much more ominous and “mysterious” if that’s what they were going for.
Every time I see him in cut scenes he just reminds me of a bargain basement Quan Chi (from Mortal Kombat)
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Not even a star wars fan, but the jailer reminds me of Snoke. A terribly uninteresting bad for the sake of bad… guy. It’s frustrating not really knowing why he is bad either. We have no backstory, we have no indication on why breaking the cycle of life and death is for good or bad. What did the other externals do to him and why did they do it? Is he out for revenge or just he just want to dominate for the sake of it?
Another question of mine is why did the externals charge him with being a jailer? Why do the strongest beings alway have this role? Think Hades…
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It’s crazy to think that as lame as the Jailer is, he was almost even lamer with that concept art design.
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The Jailor comes off a lot like arrogant Chess Master, who knows he’s won before he’s even even before he sat at the board, but still willing to play you to prove it, all while just causally moving his pieces one by one.
He’s disturbing in that way, threatening without actually acting like you’re worth threatening.
Oddly enough, as soon as you mentioned Star Wars, I actually thought of Thrawn and the Jailor sort is sort of like him… Or could of been.
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Denathrius and the Jailer are both 2D villains, the difference being that the former is more colorful and charismatic.
The Jailer has always struck me as a bland villain created in the mold of the cliche “dark lord” archetype… I’ve tried to give him a chance playing the expansion but he’s just boring to me.
Hopefully they give him some more development post-Sylvanas, or at least more backstory, otherwise I feel he’ll be a rather forgettable expansion antagonist.
That’s the problem with “unknowable evil” archetypes. In order to give them that spin, they need to sacrifice a lot of personality and flare that accompany mortal villains
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Very true.
The Jailer can’t be measured by the same means we judge mortal characters, he’s essentially a god and/or force of nature.
Whether characters like that are engaging to an audience is a debate and topic for another time, however I feel series like Elder Scrolls have handled it in an exemplary fashion.
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The Jailer should’ve come out swinging. Iced Jaina, Thrall, Baine and the player in one go at the opening of the Expac. That’s how you build strife. And I don’t mean some scripted battle. Have him sneak up on you at any given moment in the Maw and kill your a** like Arthas but better. That’s how we should’ve been rescued/salvaged by the 4 Covenants/Arbiter. The Jailer gets Anduin for his Arthas cosplay, it gives us a strong incentive to beat him and his underlings and redeem ourselves without cheapening the story.
The player needs to lose sometimes and be shown we aren’t the Gods we are portrayed as. This is why people hate Mary Sue/Gary Stu characters, if you wanna look at a fine example of one. It’s none other than the player character in retail.
Actually, I’d love it if the finale of shadowlands is the Jailer actually does manage to escape. Yeah he might lose his forces and what not, but he actually escapes.
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Woah, you’re telling me the villain being built-up in the background is less interesting than the character we had to immediately deal with and was the central focus of the narrative?
This is kind of a running theme.
The Lieutenants always have the real personalities. Kel’Thuzad to Arthas. Azshara to N’Zoth. Zul to G’Hun. And so on.
I suspect this is because the big bad usually gets got by story’s end. But the Lieutenants can escape to menace us again down the line.
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Build up if I had to guess, Denathrius as we’ve seen from the trailer and all through Revendreth is he is over the top, supremely confident, and he knows he’ll “win” in the end.
The jail though, he is said to be this all powerful villain, however the way they’ve shown him so far has made him seem like an incompetent joke. He does nothing while we tear through his lands, recuse the main cast, and foil his plans at almost every turn.
Agreed. The Jailer is just a boring, moustache twirling villain. No nuance, no charm, just evil.
Denathrius has charm, panache, and style. The epitome of Affably Evil…my favorite kind of villain,